CALIFORNIA 

SAN  DIEGO 


at 


PSYCHOLOGY  AND  LIFE.    Crown  8vo,  $2.00. 

AMERICAN  TRAITS.    From  the  Point  of   View  of  a 
German.     Crown  8vo,  $1.60,  net. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO. 

BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK. 


AMERICAN  TRAITS 

FEOM  THE  POINT  OF  VIEW 
OF  A  GERMAN 


BY 


HUGO  MUNSTEKBERG 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 


1901 


COPYRIGHT,  1901,  BY   HUGO  MUNSTERBERG 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 


Published  November,  rgoi 


To 
FREDERICK  WILLIAM  HOLLS 

Member  of  the  Permanent  Court  of  Arbitration  at  the  Hague 

IDEAL  TYPE  OF  THE 
AMERICAN  OF  GERMAN  DESCENT 


PKEFACE 

THE  following  essays  are  not  scholarly  studies, 
but  light  sketches  drawn  in  leisure  hours  by  a 
German  who  has  pitched  his  tent  among  the 
Americans  and  become  interested  in  the  differ- 
ences between  the  Americans  and  the  Germans. 
But  my  interest  in  that  contrast  is  not  merely  a 
theoretical  one  :  I  believe  that  these  two  nations 
can  and  ought  to  learn  from  each  other,  and  that 
in  this  case  even  the  protectionists  of  national 
civilization  ought  not  to  favor  a  prohibitive  tariff 
on  foreign  ideals.  Such  mutual  instruction  has 
been  hindered  by  prejudices  and  misunderstand- 
ings :  the  two  nations  do  not  know  each  other 
sufficiently,  although  they  are  connected  by  in- 
numerable ties  from  the  past  and  will  need  each 
other's  good  will  still  more  in  the  years  to  come. 
To  root  out  such  prejudices  and  to  facilitate  mu- 
tual benefit,  it  becomes  a  duty  to  measure  critically 
the  culture  of  the  one  country  by  the  ideals  of 
the  other. 


vi  PREFACE 

In  this  small  volume  the  topic  is  discussed  only 
from  one  side,  for  this  book  is  written  for  Amer- 
icans, and  for  Americans  only.  The  problem  is, 
therefore,  not  what  Germany  ought  to  learn  from 
the  United  States,  but  rather,  how  far  a  fuller 
understanding  of  German  ideals  can  be  service- 
able to  American  culture.  Of  course  this  point 
of  view  has  limited  from  the  beginning  the  circle 
of  problems  to  demand  consideration  ;  thus  it  has 
not  been  necessary  to  speak  of  commerce  and  in- 
dustry and  a  hundred  other  topics  with  regard  to 
which  Germans  and  Americans  might  be  com- 
pared. And  the  choice  of  subjects  has  been  fur- 
ther influenced  by  factors  in  the  life  of  the  author. 
Schoolboy,  student,  and  later  university  professor 
in  Germany,  and  now  for  seven  years  a  professor 
in  America,  I  have  been  of  course  more  closely  in 
contact  with  certain  sides  of  civilization  than  with 
others ;  it  is  thus  natural  that  the  problems  of 
education  and  scholarship  take  somewhat  the  cen- 
tral place  in  my  discussions.  Even  the  special 
seat  of  observation  must  have  had  its  influence  on 
my  impressions :  I  was  hardly  surprised  to  read 
the  other  day  that  I  see  the  American  world 


PREFACE  vii 

through  German  eyes  with  Harvard  astigma- 
tism. 

That  I  see  it  with  German  eyes  is  certainly 
true :  it  is  the  only  reason  which  gives,  perhaps, 
to  these  small  sketches  a  right  to  exist ;  if  I  saw 
America  with  the  eyes  of  an  American  I  should 
hardly  hope  to  notice  features  which  possibly  my 
neighbors  overlook.  It  is  the  contrast  which 
brings  out  the  lines,  and  that  fact  alone  excuses 
my  speaking  to  Americans  on  American  subjects 
after  so  short  a  period  of  acquaintance;  had  I 
waited  longer  I  should  have  seen  my  surroundings 
more  nearly  with  American  eyes  and  should  have 
perceived  less  the  characteristic  differences.  I 
think  I  can  say  at  least  that  I  have  made  the  best 
use  of  these  years  of  American  life  to  come  in 

/contact  with  its  infinite  variety.     While  the  Har- 
. 

vard  life  in  Boston  offers  in  itself  a  good  oppor- 
tunity to  meet  men  and  to  feel  the  pulse  of 
American  civilization,  I  have  traveled  again  and 
again  over  the  country  and  have  tried  to  experi- 
ence the  national  life  in  all  its  important  or  char- 
acteristic phases. 

These  informal  pages,  of  course,  cannot  show 


Tiii  PREFACE 

wholly  what  American  life  has  meant  to  me,  inas- 
much as  my  topic  forces  me  to  the  side  of  the  op- 
position. If  it  is  my  aim  to  point  to  those  features 
of  American  life  on  which  a  comment  in  the  light 
of  European  ideals  seems  allowable,  the  picture 
which  I  draw  must  appear  one-sided,  as  the  task 
gives  me  no  chance  to  linger  on  the  superiorities 
of  American  culture  which  do  not  need  the  re- 
touching by  foreign  ideals.  I  am  thus  obliged  to 
put  in  all  the  shadows  and  to  brush  out  the  lights  ; 
therefore  no  one  ought  to  imagine  that  it  has 
been  my  intention  to  draw  a  complete  picture  of 
American  life  as  it  appears  to  me. 

This  preponderance  of  adverse  criticism  brings 
an  unavoidable  result :  I  must  express  opinions 
which  are  antagonistic  to  widely  favored  opinions 
of  the  day,  to  pet  theories,  and  to  flourishing 
customs.  I  have  already  experienced  the  conse- 
quences. Ah1  the  five  essays  have  appeared  pre- 
viously, the  first  three  in  the  "  Atlantic  Monthly," 
the  last  two  in  the  "  International  Monthly,"  — 
I  reprint  them  with  the  kind  permission  of  the 
magazines,  —  and  their  isolated  appearance  has 
every  time  given  rise  to  a  public  discussion  of 


PREFACE  is 

unexpected  vehemence.  Especially  the  paper  on 
education,  which  I  had  published  under  the 
title  of  "  School  Reform,"  brought  forward  ever 
new  rejoinders  which  often  indicated  that  I  had 
touched  a  sore  point.  I  have  finally  decided 
nevertheless  to  reprint  all  the  papers  with  but 
slight  alterations ;  I  felt  that  my  papers  would 
become  valueless  if  I  ever  shaded  them  for  the 
purpose  of  escaping  antagonism.  And  further,  if 
I  look  backward  I  cannot  forget  how  much  larger 
was  the  number  of  those  who  encouraged  me  to 
stand  for  my  side  of  the  case,  and  who  insisted 
that  it  was  the  right  time  to  raise  a  voice  against 
the  tendencies  of  the  day. 

Only  one  criticism  has  appeared  in  those  utter- 
ances which  seems  to  have  weight,  or  at  least  seems 
certainly  to  be  in  order.  It  has  been  often  ques- 
tioned whether  I  am  right  in  fighting  merely 
against  American  shortcomings  from  a  German 
point  of  view,  and  in  trying  to  destroy  prejudices 
on  this  side  of  the  water ;  whether  it  is  not  in  a 
still  higher  degree  my  duty  to  attempt  the  same 
for  the  other  side;  for  German  prejudices  con- 
cerning the  United  States  are  certainly  not  less 


x  PREFACE 

severe  and  the  points  in  which  Germany  might 
learn  from  American  culture  not  less  numerous. 
The  question  is  fair,  and  I  should  acknowledge  its 
force  had  only  my  critics  first  made  sure  that  I 
am  not  doing  exactly  what  they  urge.  I  have 
done  it  unceasingly  and  with  my  best  energies 
ever  since  I  came  here :  I  have  published  on  the 
other  side  scores  of  articles  and  essays,  and  shall 
soon  put  before  the  German  public  an  entire 
book  on  American  life,  a  book  which  is  far  less 
fragmentary  than  this,  and  deals  in  a  detailed 
way  with  the  political,  economic,  intellectual,  and 
social  aspects  of  American  culture.  Its  purpose 
is  to  illuminate  and  to  defend  a  culture  which  I 
have  learned  to  admire  and  which  is  so  greatly 
misunderstood  over  there ;  it  seeks  to  interpret 
systematically  the  democratic  ideals  of  America. 
It  will  be  written  for  Germans  only. 

I  know  this  method  of  double  entry  exposes 
me  to  the  possibility,  when  detached  paragraphs 
of  my  German  essays  are  brought  over  here  and 
published  in  translation,  of  seeming  inconsistent 
or  even  insincere.  And  yet  contradictions  exist 
merely  for  the  superficial  observer ;  both  state- 


PREFACE  xi 

ments  express  equally  a  sincere  conviction.  A 
little  strip  of  gray  paper  appears  white  on  a  black 
background  and  black  on  a  white  one;  so  my 
statements  can  express  the  same  truth  on  both 
sides  only  if  the  peculiarities  of  public  opinion 
they  encounter  are  considered  beforehand.  What 
I  write  in  Germany  to  counteract  the  prejudices 
against  America  would  sound  on  American  soil 
like  cheap  flattery,  and  would  be  not  only  useless, 
but  would  stand  in  the  way  of  reform ;  on  the 
other  hand,  that  which  I  publish  here  would 
sound  there  like  utter  condemnation,  it  would 
reinforce  unfriendly  opinions,  and  would  be  in 
fact  misleading,  since  it  would  be  exaggerated  by 
the  existing  prejudices  and  would  not  be  supple- 
mented by  a  knowledge  of  the  really  salient  high 
lights.  The  wrong  would  thus  be  done  not  by 
the  author  who  emphasizes  the  good  points  of 
America  over  there,  and  criticises  the  weak  ones 
here,  but  by  those  who  detach  such  studies  from 
their  background. 

My  last  word  is,  therefore,  a  serious  request 
that  no  one,  especially  no  German- American  who 
agrees  with  me  as  to  the  need  of  good  relations 


xii  PREFACE 

between  the  two  countries,  should  quote  or  trans- 
late from  this  little  book  in  a  German  paper  over 
in  the  fatherland.  So  far  as  I  can  help  it,  no  copy 
of  the  book  shall  reach  the  European  continent ; 
and  I  can  promise  in  return  also  to  take  pains 
when  I  publish  my  German  book  on  America 
that  none  of  the  amiabilities  I  may  have  to  pro- 
mulgate over  there  shall  recross  the  ocean  and 

dull  my  criticism  here. 

HUGO  MUNSTERBERG. 
CAMBRIDGE,  MASS.,  October,  1901. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 
I.  THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    ....        1 

II.  EDUCATION 43 

III.  SCHOLARSHIP 81 

IV.  WOMEN 128 

V.  AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY.  173 


AMERICAN  TRAITS 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS 

I 

DURING  the  last  years,  and  especially  since  the 
beginning  of  the  Spanish  war,  scarcely  a  month 
has  passed  which  has  not  brought  to  public  no- 
tice some  fancied  friction  between  the  Americans 
and  the  Germans,  and  again  and  again  the  scare- 
heads  of  sensational  newspapers  have  suggested 
the  possibility  of  a  clash.  Since  England  is  no 
longer  a  bogy  to  frighten  the  Americans,  the 
Germans  have  to  be  the  target  of  all  the  suspi- 
cion and  bad  feeling  which  some  Americans  like 
to  cultivate  against  Europe,  a  feeling  always  en- 
couraged by  those  politicians  who  want  to  bolster 
up  new  schemes  by  vague  allusions  to  a  threat- 
ening danger  beyond  the  sea.  Whether  Captain 
Coghlan  or  an  agrarian  in  the  fatherland  has 
talked  inconsiderately,  whether  Dewey  and  Die- 
drichs  or  Chaffee  and  Waldersee  are  the  actors, 
whether  Samoa  or  China,  the  West  Indies  or  Bra- 


2  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

zil  is  in  question,  whether  meat  inspection  and 
the  importation  of  American  apples  or  a  tariff 
change  on  this  side  is  under  discussion,  whether  in 
Congress  or  the  Reichstag  the  industrial  develop- 
ment of  the  future  is  forecast,  the  facts  are  each 
time  pointed  out  to  us  as  dangerous  clouds  whose 
lightnings  may  strike  us  before  the  next  news- 
paper edition.  All  this,  however,  is  politics ; 
whether  serious  conflicts  were  really  impending  or 
not,  why  should  a  student  of  social  psychology 
concern  himself  with  the  situation  ? 

But  may  we  not  be  deceiving  ourselves  if  we 
think  that  the  real  trouble  has  been  in  Manila  or 
Apia  or  Pekin,  or  that  it  will  ever  take  its  rise  in 
the  market  places  of  the  world  where  American 
and  German  industry  are  in  competition  ?  Is  it 
not  rather  the  mental  state  of  the  two  nations 
that  is  the  only  possible  source  of  any  danger? 
The  object  of  quarrel  is  insignificant;  it  is  the 
inner  attitude  which  counts.  If  Americans  and 
Germans  like  one  another  and  have  sympathy  for 
one  another's  character,  the  whole  of  China  will 
be  too  small  to  cause  a  conflict ;  but  if  there  is  an 
antipathy  between  them,  if  neither  trusts  the 
nature  of  the  other,  the  tiniest  rock  in  the  ocean 
may  suffice  to  bring  on  a  war  which  shall  set  the 
globe  ablaze.  Does  not  all  this  give  an  excuse 
to  the  psychologist  who,  though  far  from  the 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS     3 

mysteries  of  politics,  ventures  to  take  an  impar- 
tial view  of  this  interesting  emotional  case  ? 

To  live  up  to  all  the  opportunities  of  scholarly 
display  which  this  chapter  of  social  psychology 
offers,  I  ought  to  go  back  to  the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury or  at  least  to  Frederick  the  Great,  whose  en- 
thusiasm for  the  American  struggle  for  independ- 
ence furnishes  plenty  of  material  for  all  who  like 
to  make  such  introductions.  But  I  am  afraid  that 
the  usual  fine  quotations  which  show  the  absence 
of  American-German  frictions  in  earlier  times 
have  hardly  any  direct  bearing  on  our  present 
case.  The  Germans  of  a  generation  ago  did  not 
look  much  beyond  the  ocean  in  any  case,  and  the 
German  imagination  pictured  the  land  rather  than 
the  nation,  —  the  land  where  gold  was  lying  in 
the  streets,  and  where  every  newcomer  still  found 
the  chance  of  a  free  life.  The  American  as  a 
special  type  of  man  had  not  been  discovered ; 
neither  favorable  nor  unfavorable  information 
about  him  was  diffused,  simply  because  nobody 
asked  for  it.  On  the  American  side  it  was  some- 
what different.  Millions  of  German  immigrants 
had  poured  into  the  land,  and  had  become  an  hon- 
est and  most  industrious  part  of  the  population. 
Moreover,  while  they  were  bringing  the  spirit  of 
the  German  working  classes,  thousands  of  young 
Americans  were  going  abroad  to  bring  home  the 


4  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

spirit  of  educated  Germany.  German  music  and 
German  philosophy,  German  joyousness  and  Ger- 
man university  spirit,  came  to  these  shores ;  and 
yet,  just  as  the  American  land  of  gold  and  liberty 
remained  to  the  imagination  of  the  German  some- 
thing far  and  strange,  so  the  Teutonic  land  of 
thinkers  and  poets  remained  to  the  American  im- 
agination remote  and  vague.  No  one  thought  of 
comparison  or  of  rivalry,  because  the  two  worlds 
seemed  in  different  dimensions. 

But  all  this  has  changed  overnight :  the  dreamy 
German  and  the  adventurous  American  are  sitting 
close  together  on  the  same  bench,  feeling  that 
they  must  be  either  friends  or  foes.  Wonderfully 
as  the  cables  and  twin-screw  steamers  have  dimin- 
ished the  distance  in  space  between  the  two  peo- 
ples, the  diminution  of  the  inner  mental  distance 
has  been  still  more  surprising  and  unexpected 
on  both  sides.  Germany  has  become  strong, 
rich,  and  powerful,  and  its  politics  have  turned 
into  realistic  paths.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
United  States,  since  the  country  has  come  to  ma- 
turity economically,  has  put  its  gigantic  resources 
into  the  service  of  education  and  art  and  sci- 
ence. They  are  both  thus  moving  in  the  same 
sphere,  and  the  question  is  merely,  Will  they 
move  shoulder  to  shoulder,  or  be  ever  at  vari- 
ance? Their  feelings  and  emotions,  even  their 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS     5 

moods,  will  decide  about  that :  how  do  they  feel 
to-day  ? 

No  sincere  observer  can  deny  that  the  two  peo- 
ples in  some  respects  do  not  like  each  other.  It 
is  by  no  means  hate  nor  even  animosity  which 
separates  them ;  it  is  a  kind  of  antipathy,  a  half- 
ethical,  half -aesthetic  aversion.  It  would  be  super- 
ficial and  wrong  to  deny  this  feeling,  and  to  main- 
tain that  their  dislike  means  commercial  rivalry ; 
both  are  too  fair  and  broad-minded  —  indeed,  I 
may  say,  too  idealistic  —  to  dislike  each  other  on 
account  of  wheat  and  sugar  and  pork ;  they  might 
struggle  about  the  tariff,  but  tariff  struggles  be- 
come noisy  and  undignified  affairs  only  because 
the  masses  lack  mutual  respect.  Neither  Germans 
nor  Americans  are  accustomed  in  their  social  life 
to  treat  the  neighbor  who  happens  to  be  a  fair 
competitor  as  an  enemy.  Competition  is  to  them 
a  stimulant,  but  not  a  poison  which  paralyzes  the 
good  will.  The  nations  feel,  like  private  citizens, 
that  the  respect  cannot  be  hurt  by  a  divergence 
of  economic  interests,  and  that  even  friendship  is 
possible  in  spite  of  emulation.  But  even  those 
who  accept  unhesitatingly  the  materialistic  theory 
of  history,  according  to  which  economic  factors 
alone  determine  the  development  of  human  rela- 
tions, have  no  case  here,  as  in  all  essentials  the 
past  relation  of  the  two  countries  has  been  one  of 


6  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

mutual  economic  help,  the  one  nation  needing 
just  that  which  the  other  supplied,  and  thus  offer- 
ing all  the  conditions  for  a  solid  union  ;  only  the 
predictions  of  the  future  speak  of  rivalry,  and 
they  can  certainly  not  account  for  the  popular 
lack  of  sympathy  in  the  past.  The  sharpness  and 
unfriendliness  of  speech  which  is  remarked  some- 
times on  both  sides  in  political  and  commercial 
matters  is  not  the  cause  of  the  national  attitude, 
but  its  effect.  It  is  not  an  objective  irritating 
situation  which  forces  on  the  two  peoples  an  an- 
gry emotion  ;  it  is  the  underlying  emotion  which 
too  easily  gives  to  every  indifferent  situation  a 
touch  of  antagonism.  The  f eeling  is  the  primary 
factor,  and  its  source  is  a  certain  misapprehension 
of  character.  The  citizens  of  the  two  nations  do 
not  like  one  another  because  they  do  not  regard 
one  another  as  gentlemen  :  the  American  thinks 
the  German  servile  and  reactionary,  narrow- 
minded  and  narrow-hearted ;  the  German  thinks 
the  American  greedy  and  vulgar,  brutal  and  cor- 
rupt. As  long  as  large  circles  of  the  population 
have  such  a  feeling,  all  the  diplomacy  of  the  two 
governments  can  merely  apply  plaster  to  the 
wounds,  but  cannot  thoroughly  heal  them.  Only 
one  course  is  open  for  an  organic  improvement : 
the  two  nations  must  learn  to  understand  each 
other  and  to  feel  the  inner  accord  of  their  real 
characters. 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS     7 

II 

Caricatures  are  not  portraits,  but  they  can  be 
helpful  in  recognizing  the  essential  features  which 
the  designer  really  believes  himself  to  see  in  the 
original.  The  caricature  of  the  German,  popular 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  is  moreover  not 
confined  to  the  comic  papers,  but  is  excellently 
represented  in  the  serious  editorials  of  many  news- 
papers ;  and  the  funny  German  in  a  second-class 
American  theatre  is  much  less  amusing  than  that 
absurd  creature  which  in  parlor  gossip  and  club 
talk  is  quite  seriously  substituted  for  the  inhab- 
itant of  the  fatherland.  An  American  who  has 
never  been  abroad  invited  me,  the  other  day,  to 
a  German  luncheon.  I  had  to  work  my  way 
through  a  series  of  so-called  German  dishes,  which 
I  had  never  tasted  or  smelled  before  ;  and  when 
finally  imported  sauerkraut  appeared,  and  I  had 
to  confess  that  I  had  never  tried  it  in  my  life 
and  had  never  seen  any  one  else  eating  it,  my 
host  assured  me  that  I  did  not  know  anything 
about  Germany :  it  was  the  favorite  dish  of  every 
Prussian.  The  habits  of  this  Prussian  sauerkraut- 
eater  are  well  known.  He  goes  shabbily  dressed, 
never  takes  a  bath,  drinks  beer  at  his  breakfast, 
plays  skat,  smokes  a  long  pipe,  wears  spectacles, 
reads  books  from  dirty  loan  libraries,  is  rude  to 


8  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

the  lower  classes  and  slavishly  servile  to  the  higher, 
is  innocent  of  the  slightest  attempt  at  good  form 
in  society,  considering  it  as  his  object  in  life  to 
obey  the  policeman,  to  fill  blanks  with  bureau- 
cratic red  tape,  and  to  get  a  title  in  front  of  his 
name.  Most  of  this  genus  fill  their  time  with 
training  parade  step  in  the  barrack  courts ;  the 
others  either  make  bad  lyrical  poems  or  live  im- 
moral lives,  or  sit  in  prison  on  account  of  daring 
to  say  a  free  word  in  politics.  But  their  chief 
characteristic  comes  out  in  their  relations  to  wo- 
men and  to  the  government.  With  calculating 
cruelty,  they  force  women  to  remain  uneducated 
and  without  rights ;  in  marriage  they  treat  them 
like  silly  playthings  or  servant-girls  ;  a  woman 
with  intellectual  or  aesthetic  interests  is,  like  every- 
thing which  suggests  progress,  a  horror  to  their 
minds.  And  lastly,  their  government :  it  is  hard 
to  understand  why,  but  it  is  a  fact  that  they  in- 
sist on  living  without  any  constitution,  under  an 
absolute  autocrat,  and  it  is  their  chief  pride  that 
their  monarch  is  an  irresponsible  busybody,  whose 
chief  aim  is  to  bother  his  patient  subjects. 

This  is  the  "Dutchman"  in  American  eyes; 
but  how  does  the  Yankee  look  in  the  imagination 
of  my  countrymen  ?  In  the  German  language 
the  adjective  "  American  "  is  usually  connected 
with  but  three  things.  The  Germans  speak  of 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS  9 

American  stoves,  and  mean  a  kind  of  stove  which 
I  have  never  seen  in  this  country ;  they  speak  of 
American  duels,  and  mean  an  absurd  sort  of  duel 
which  was  certainly  never  fought  on  this  conti- 
nent ;  and  finally,  they  speak  of  American  hum- 
bug, and  mean  by  it  that  kind  of  humbug  which 
flourishes  in  Berlin  just  as  in  Chicago.  But  the 
American  man  is  of  course  very  well  known.  He 
is  a  haggard  creature,  with  vulgar  tastes  and 
brutal  manners,  who  drinks  whiskey  and  chews 
tobacco,  spits,  fights,  puts  his  feet  on  the  table, 
and  habitually  rushes  along  in  wild  haste,  absorbed 
by  a  greedy  desire  for  the  dollars  of  his  neigh- 
bors. He  does  not  care  for  education  or  art,  for 
the  public  welfare  or  for  justice,  except  so  far  as 
they  mean  money  to  him.  Corrupt  from  top  to 
toe,  he  buys  legislation  and  courts  and  govern- 
ment ;  and  when  he  wants  fun,  he  lynches  inno- 
cent negroes  on  Madison  Square  in  New  York,  or 
in  the  Boston  Public  Garden.  He  has  his  family 
home  usually  in  a  sky-scraper  of  twenty-four 
stories;  his  business  is  founded  on  misleading 
advertisements;  his  newspapers  are  filled  with 
accounts  of  murders,  and  his  churches  swarm  with 
hypocrites. 

It  is  true  that  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean  there 
are  some  who  know  a  little  better ;  but  if  the 
millions  who  enjoy  the  New  York  Journal  and 


10  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

the  Berliner  Lokalanzeiger  have  such  character 
sketches  in  rnind,  how  small  is  the  influence  on 
public  opinion  of  that  little  set  which  relies  on  the 
New  York  Evening  Post  and  the  Nationalzeitung ! 
And  even  these  best  classes,  are  they  really  so 
much  freer  from  prejudice  ?  After  all,  the  Ameri- 
can clings  to  the  belief  that  the  German  is  reac- 
tionary and  subservient,  without  a  manly  desire  for 
freedom  and  independence,  —  that  his  Emperor  is 
irresponsible,  and  the  average  subject  no  gentle- 
man ;  while  the  American  remains  to  German  eyes 
dollar-thirsty  and  corrupt,  vulgar  and  selfish,  — 
on  the  whole,  also,  no  gentleman.  So  when  an 
English  cable  agency  sends  news  to  Germany  that 
the  Americans  have  fallen  upon  the  poor  Cubans 
to  fill  the  pockets  of  senators,  and  are  killing  in 
the  Philippines  mostly  women  and  children,  and 
sends  news  to  America  that  the  Germans  are  slyly 
interfering  with  the  navy  in  Manila  or  plundering 
Pekin  or  preparing  a  revolution  in  South  America, 
is  it  surprising  that  the  worst  finds  the  readiest 
belief,  and  that  public  opinion  in  both  countries 
cries,  "  How  dare  they,  the  rascals ! " 

That  which  alone  seems  surprising  is  that  the 
brambles  of  prejudice  can  grow  so  exuberantly 
while  the  ocean  steamers  are  crowded,  going  and 
coming.  The  hundreds  of  students  who  go  yearly 
to  German  universities,  the  thousands  of  Ameri- 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    11 

can  sight-seers  who  go  every  summer  on  pilgrim- 
ages from  Heidelberg  to  Cologne,  the  millions  of 
German  immigrants  who  have  been  poured  into 
this  country,  and  the  billions  of  newspaper  pages 
which  are  printed  on  both  sides  every  year,  —  are 
they  all  unable  to  disseminate  the  truth  ?  But 
we  cannot  deny  that  the  psychological  conditions 
are  more  favorable  to  the  survival  of  the  false 
view,  in  spite  of  the  blessed  work  of  the  Associated 
Press.  The  Americans  who  cross  the  ocean  can- 
not see  much  of  Germany  and  cannot  teach  much 
about  America.  A  friend  assured  me  once  that 
there  is  only  one  classification  of  Americans  which 
it  is  worth  while  to  make,  —  those  who  have  been 
abroad  and  those  who  have  not.  I  cannot  agree 
with  him.  I  have  met  many  whose  minds  have 
spanned  the  world,  though  they  have  never  left 
the  New  England  States,  and  many  more  who  have 
strolled  over  the  whole  of  Europe,  and  yet  are 
as  narrow  and  provincial  as  if  they  had  never 
looked  over  the  fence  of  their  own  back  yards. 
A  man  may  heartily  enjoy  the  architecture  of 
Niirnberg  or  Hildesheim,  the  paintings  of  Dres- 
den, the  operas  of  Baireuth,  the  scenery  of  the 
Black  Forest,  and  the  uniforms  of  the  lieutenants 
of  the  guard,  and  yet  leave  the  country  with  all 
the  absurd  prejudices  which  he  carried  there.  We 
are  inclined  by  psychological  laws  to  perceive 


12  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

merely  that  -which  we  expect  to  perceive  ;  we  do 
not  voluntarily  suppress  the  remainder,  but  it  does 
not  exist  for  us  at  all.  Germany  has  no  freedom  : 
thus  the  most  harmless  policeman  on  the  street 
corner  appears  to  be  a  tyrant,  and  brings  before 
the  mind  of  the  traveler  the  terrors  of  medieval- 
ism. And  when  the  bicycles  must  have  a  num- 
ber by  day  and  a  lantern  by  night,  who  can  help 
thinking  sentimentally  of  the  free  home  over  the 
sea,  where  everybody  has  the  liberty  to  run  over 
his  fellow ;  and  where  the  landlady  gives  chops 
for  breakfast,  and  not  eggs  alone ;  and  where 
plenty  of  blankets,  not  feather  beds,  await  you ; 
and  where  ice  water  flows  and  mince  pies  abound  ? 
The  little  differences  trouble  the  stranger  and 
they  sweh1  in  his  imagination,  while  every  good 
thing  that  does  not  fit  with  his  anticipations  fades 
away  and  is  soon  forgotten.  Very  few  Americans 
come  into  a  sufficiently  intimate  contact  with  the 
real  German  life  torget  their  traditional  errors 
eradicated. 

But  the  usual  Europe-trotter,  on  the  other  hand, 
does  not  help  much  to  propagate  the  belief  in 
American  culture.  He  goes  his  way  quietly,  and 
no  one  will  blame  him  for  enjoying  the  view  from 
Heidelberg  Castle  down  to  the  Neckar  Valley  with- 
out making  a  speech  for  the  glory  of  his  coun- 
try. He  remains  unobserved  ;  but  when  a  puffed- 


13 

up  parvenu  from  the  West  comes  along,  with 
noisy  manners,  he  is  observed,  and  he  alone,  — 
though  one  among  scores,  —  is  then  "  the  Ameri- 
can ; "  and  if  he  puts  his  feet  on  the  table  in  the 
hotel  corridor,  there  are  certainly  a  dozen  men  in 
the  neighborhood  who  will  never  after  relinquish 
the  opinion  that  all  Americans  are  hopelessly  vul- 
gar and  disgusting. 

Ill 

The  Germans  who  travel  to  America  either  are 
on  a  journey  or  have  come  to  stay.  The  first 
group  contains  few :  they  go,  for  the  most  part, 
from  New  York  through  Florida  and  the  City  of 
Mexico  to  San  Francisco,  and  through  the  Yellow- 
stone Park,  Chicago,  and  Quebec  back  to  Hoboken. 
If  they  have  done  that  in  six  months,  they  write 
only  one  or  two  magazine  articles  about  the  Amer- 
icans ;  but  if  they  have  succeeded  in  doing  it  in 
six  weeks,  then  they  write  a  book,  and  a  big  one. 
They  have  of  course  seen  everything  :  they  have 
shaken  hands  with  the  President,  have  witnessed 
a  prize  fight  at  an  athletic  club,  visited  the  stock 
yards  and  the  Indian  schools,  studied  polygamy 
in  Utah  and  the  Chinese  quarters  in  San  Fran- 
cisco ;  they  have  even  met  some  one  in  the  Pull- 
man car  who  knew  all  about  the  silver  question 
and  the  next  presidency.  And  when  they  have 


14  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

added  their  own  experiences  in  the  barber  shops 
and  in  the  barrooms,  the  book  will  contain  all 
that  Germans  can  desire  to  know  about  America. 
They  have  not  the  remotest  idea  that  this  nation 
can  show  greater  achievements  than  its  hotels  and 
railways.  They  have  seen  all  the  Baedeker  stars, 
and  do  not  guess  that  the  tourist  attractions  of 
this  country  represent  its  real  energies  much  less 
than  do  those  of  Europe.  Europe,  with  its  relics 
of  history  and  art,  may  speak  to  the  eye ;  Amer- 
ica speaks  to  the  understanding ;  whatever  na- 
tional life  is  here  apparent  to  the  eye  is  mostly 
but  an  imitation  of  Europe.  The  traveler  is 
accustomed  to  open  his  eyes  only,  and  to  close  his 
ears  ;  he  descants  for  the  thousandth  time  on  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  Niagara,  but  he  does  not 
learn  anything  about  the  inner  life,  with  its 
mountains  of  accomplishment  and  its  cataracts 
of  problems.  There  are  plenty  of  excellent  Ger- 
man monographs  about  special  economic  features 
of  American  life  which  can  be  studied  from  the 
outside ;  the  studies  on  the  more  internal  func- 
tions of  education  or  religion  are  much  more 
superficial,  and  nothing  which  really  analyzes  the 
inner  man  with  full  understanding  has  ever  been 
carried  home  by  the  German  traveler.  On  the 
other  hand,  he  is  too  rare  a  guest  to  add  anything 
by  his  appearance  here  to  American  ideas  about 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS          15 

the  Germans.  He  remains  the  more  unobserved 
because  there  is  no  lack  of  German  nature  already 
at  hand  to  be  inspected  under  the  most  various 
conditions ;  for  New  York  and  Chicago  have  each 
more  Germans  than  any  German  city  except  Ber- 
lin. Thus  only  the  Germans  who  live  here  are 
able  to  represent  their  native  country  in  the  New 
World,  and  to  take  back  to  Germany  true  ideas 
about  the  inner  American  life.  How  has  it  hap- 
pened that  even  these  millions  have  not  dispelled 
the  dense  fog  of  Continental  ignorance  about  the 
Yankees?  How  has  it  happened  that  the  real 
America  is  still  as  undiscovered  by  the  educated 
German  as  if  Columbus  had  never  crossed  the 
ocean  ? 

The  German  immigrant  can  justly  claim  to  be 
a  respectable  and  very  desirable  element  of  the 
American  population :  he  has  stood  always  on  the 
side  of  solid  work  and  honesty ;  he  has  brought 
skill  and  energy  over  the  ocean,  and  he  has  not 
forgotten  his  music  and  his  joyfulness  ;  he  is  not 
second  to  any  one  in  his  devotion  to  the  duties  of 
a  citizen  in  peace  and  in  war,  and  without  his  aid 
many  of  America's  industrial,  commercial,  and 
technical  triumphs  would  be  unknown.  But  all 
that  does  not  disprove  the  fact  that  he  is  often 
somewhat  unfit  to  judge  fairly  the  life  which  sur- 
rounds him.  First,  he  belongs  almost  always  to 


16  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

a  social  stratum  in  which  the  attention  is  fully 
absorbed  by  the  external  life  of  a  country,  and 
which  is  without  feeling  for  the  achievements  of 
its  mental  life;  he  was  poor  in  his  fatherland, 
and  lives  comfortably  here,  and  thus  he  is  enthu- 
siastic over  the  material  life,  praises  the  railroads 
and  hotels,  the  bridges  and  mills,  but  does  not  even 
try  to  judge  of  the  libraries  and  universities,  the 
museums  and  the  hospitals.  On  the  other,  hand, 
he  feels  socially  in  the  background;  he  is  the 
"Dutchman,"  who,  through  his  bad  English, 
through  his  habits  and  manners,  through  his 
tastes  and  pleasures,  is  different  from  the  major- 
ity, and  therefore  set  apart  as  a  citizen  of  second 
rank,  —  if  not  slighted,  at  least  kept  in  social  iso- 
lation. On  the  side  of  the  German,  the  result  of 
this  situation  is  often  an  entire  ignorance  of  the 
Anglo-American  life;  he  may  go  his  way  here 
for  thirty  years  without  ever  breaking  bread  at 
the  table  of  any  one  outside  of  the  German  circle ; 
he  may  even  have  become  rich,  and  yet  he  is  not 
quite  in  the  social  current.  His  ignorance  is  there- 
fore too  easily  coupled  with  unfairness  ;  the  Ger- 
man who  feels  himself  slighted  tends  to  minimize 
the  effect  of  the  unfriendly  attitude  of  the  Anglo- 
American  by  sharp  criticism :  everything  which 
seems  strange  is  in  his  talk  distorted  into  a  defect, 
and  every  real  weakness  grows  to  a  vice.  Of 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    17 

course,  there  are  not  a  few  exceptions,  not.  a  few 
who  are  fully  received,  even  if  we  disregard  that 
less  worthy  class  which  buys  recognition  by  dis- 
avowal of  the  fatherland,  of  whom  some,  in  the 
interest  of  city  politics,  are  said  to  be  ambitious  of 
becoming  Irishmen.  The  large  mass,  however, 
continues  in  that  social  separation  which  makes  its 
judgment  an  odd  mixture  of  ignorance  as  to  the 
inner  life,  unfairness  as  to  the  personal  qualities, 
and  blind  admiration  for  the  wealth  and  economic 
greatness  of  this  country.  In  such  a  form  the 
gossip  of  a  hundred  thousand  family  letters  and 
saloon  conversations  pours  into  Germany,  and 
naturally  reinforces  there,  through  that  which  it 
praises  almost  as  much  as  through  that  which  it 
blames,  the  feeling  of  antipathy  toward  the  United 
States.  Such  German-Americans  are  not  only 
unfit  to  judge  Americans ;  they  are  also,  unfor- 
tunately, unfit  to  correct  the  traditional  ideas  of 
Americans  about  Germans.  If  they  lived  up  to 
their  highest  duty,  they  would  work  out  in  them- 
selves the  noblest  type  of  German  ideals,  in  order 
to  impress  Americans  with  the  best  of  the  German 
nature,  and  thus  make  moral  conquests  for  their 
old  home.  So  did  the  generation  of  1848  with  a 
circle  of  admirable  leaders,  of  whom  Carl  Schurz 
became  the  best  known  representative.  But  no 
new  generation  has  appeared  after  them  to  take 


18  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

up  the  work,  no  new  set  has  come  in  which  has 
felt  itself  called  upon  to  add  to  the  glory  of  the 
fatherland.  A  few  high-minded  newspapers  have 
faithfully  shown  the  way ;  Conried's  Irving  Place 
Theatre  has  been  a  source  of  inspiration  with  noble 
influence  on  the  American  stage  ;  a  few  eminent 
scholars  are  sprinkled  over  the  country.  But  on 
the  whole  the  German- American  masses  of  to-day 
show  little  of  the  German  tendency  to  higher  amis. 
They  are  surprisingly  indifferent ;  their  clubs  and 
associations  lack  more  and  more  the  inspirations 
of  earlier  days,  and  they  are  satisfied  to  praise 
honesty  as  their  peculiar  German  virtue  instead  of 
feeling  it  to  be  a  matter  of  course.  Alarmingly 
few  men  of  individual  power  have  grown  up  among 
those  millions.  What  characterizes  the  German  at 
home,  the  tendency  to  idealism  and  the  desire  for 
intellectual  lif  e,  has  evaporated  ;  the  artisan  or  the 
farmer,  whose  highest  wish  at  home  would  have 
been  to  send  his  son  to  the  gymnasium,  and  per- 
haps even  to  the  university,  is  here  glad  if  his 
boy  becomes  a  clever  business  clerk  as  quickly  as 
possible.  It  seems  too  often  as  if  he  imitated  by 
preference  the  bad  features  of  his  surroundings. 
The  exceptions  merely  confirm  the  rule  that  the 
average  German- American  stands  in  some  respects 
below  the  level  of  the  average  German  at  home. 
This  is  hardly  a  result  of  the  bad  quality  of  the 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    19 

immigrants ;  on  the  contrary,  the  factors  which 
determine  the  individual  to  cross  the  ocean  make 
it  probable  that,  in  most  cases,  the  stronger  and 
more  energetic  personalities  seek  the  wider  field 
of  a  new  country ;  the  lowering  of  the  average 
must  be  the  result  of  the  new  conditions  of  life, 
and  not  of  the  selection  of  the  material. 

It  seems,  then,  that  the  German-Americans 
have  done  but  little  to  make  the  Germans  under- 
stand America  better,  and  perhaps  still  less  to 
make  the  Americans  understand  the  real  Ger- 
mans ;  they  have  given  little  help  toward  awak- 
ening in  the  two  nations  the  f eeling  of  mutual 
sympathy ;  and  yet,  as  we  have  said,  this  alone 
is  the  way  for  an  organic  improvement  of  their 
political  relations.  If  they  had  lived  up  to  their 
duties  in  the  last  twenty  years  as  they  did  in  the 
fifties  and  sixties,  the  branches  of  the  Teutonic 
race  would  have  been  united  by  a  more  cordial 
feeling,  and  many  occurrences  of  the  last  two 
years  would  have  been  impossible. 

They  alone  have  seen  both  countries  with  lov- 
ing eyes  and  loyal  hearts,  and  they  ought,  there- 
fore, to  be  able  to  do  justice  to  the  true  intentions 
of  both  parties.  In  their  hands  is  the  flag  of 
truce.  They  must  embody  in  themselves  the 
best  side  of  the  German  spirit,  and  they  must 
open  the  eyes  of  Germans  at  home  to  what  is 


20  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

best  in  the  American  nature.  Their  work  must 
of  course  be  futile  if  they  ignore  the  facts  and 
tell  fairy  tales  about  the  two  countries.  What  is 
needed  is  nothing  but  the  truth,  freed  from  the 
traditional  phrases  of  short-sighted  prejudice. 

To  be  sure,  the  atmosphere  in  which  the  preju- 
dices take  shape  would  have  been  different  if  the 
Americans  of  the  old  stock  had  shown  a  deeper 
understanding  or  a  fairer  appreciation  of  all  the 
desirable  features  which  the  German  immigration 
has  added  to  the  general  American  physiognomy. 
For  the  last  three  months  of  every  presidential 
campaign  the  German  voter  is  praised  up  and 
down  as  a  model  citizen  and  what  not.  But 
when  the  election  is  over,  the  Yankee  feels  him- 
self again  as  the  host  who  alone  has  the  full  right 
to  set  standards,  and  the  American  "  with  a 
hyphen  "  is  the  guest  who  is  tolerated,  but  who 
has  to  adjust  his  ideals  to  the  English  ways.  He 
forgets  too  easily  that  the  American  nation  is  not 
a  nation  of  Englishmen,  but  a  new  English-speak- 
ing people,  in  which  the  most  various  elements 
are  fused  into  something  new  and  original.  This 
new  nation,  which  is  so  decidedly  un-English,  not 
least  in  its  smartness  and  its  humor  and  its  ora- 
torical flow,  and  which  willingly  accepts  negro 
songs  as  its  national  melodies,  ought  to  welcome 
gladly  the  infusion  of  German  blood,  instead  of 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS         21 

avoiding  the  social  mixture.  It  is  easy  to  make 
light  of  the  music  and  the  Christmas  tree  or  to 
denounce  the  German  breweries,  but  even  the 
beer  is  a  gain  if  it  displaces  the  ruinous  whiskey, 
and  the  music  and  the  Christmas  tree  are  merely 
symbols  of  characteristics  which  were  certainly 
desirable  additions  to  the  temperament  of  the 
new  nation.  But  there  were  more  important  fac- 
tors, —  industry  and  civic  virtues,  which,  brought 
over  from  Germany,  helped  to  build  up  the  land 
and  the  nation,  and  it  is  unfair  to  stamp  the  Ger- 
man-American as  a  citizen  of  second  rank  and 
thus  to  isolate  him  socially. 

It  is  really  not  surprising  that  the  Germans  in 
America  dislike  every  approach  to  England,  be- 
cause they  feel  instinctively  that  an  Anglo-Ameri- 
can union  reinforces  the  feeling  that  the  Americans 
are  an  Anglo-Saxon  nation  in  which  other  Teu- 
tonic elements  are  strangers.  It  was  thus  only 
natural  that  the  rumors  of  an  Anglo-American 
alliance  a  short  time  ago  were  the  occasion  — 
the  first  for  many  years  —  of  gigantic  demon- 
strations on  the  part  of  the  Germans  in  the  coun- 
try. It  was  not,  as  they  themselves  believed  it  to 
be,  a  fight  against  imperialism,  as  in  the  question 
of  imperialism  the  Germans  are  just  as  divided  as 
any  other  group  of  citizens ;  and  it  was  still  much 
less,  as  the  newspapers  of  Germany  believed  it  to 


22  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

be,  a  demonstration  against  England  in  favor  of 
Germany,  but  it  was  simply  a  reaction  against  the 
emphasis  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  character  of  the 
American  nation,  which  means  a  social  humil- 
iation for  the  German- Americans.  The  fault  is 
thus  clearly  on  both  sides ;  the  native  Americans 
and  the  German-Americans  have  participated 
equally  in  bringing  about  this  separation.  But 
for  us  it  is  not  a  question  of  blame,  merely  a 
question  of  fact;  and  the  fact  remains, that  the 
German- American  has  lived  in  an  isolation  which 
has  made  him  on  the  whole  unfit  for  the  role  which 
would  be  most  natural  to  him,  that  of  giving 
to  the  Germans  at  home  and  to  the  Americans 
here  a  deeper  mutual  understanding  of  their  real 
characters. 

IV 

I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  point  out,  as  illus- 
trations, those  two  prejudices  with  regard  to  the 
character  of  the  two  peoples  which  strike  me  as 
an  impartial  observer  most  strongly,  and  which  are 
really  the  root  of  the  misunderstandings.  I  mean 
the  traditional  German  opinion  that  the  Americans 
have  no  idealism,  but  are  selfish  realists,  and  the 
American  belief,  that  the  Germans  have  no  spirit 
of  freedom.  The  belief  that  the  Americans  have 
no  spark  of  idealism  in  their  souls  has  done 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    23 

more  harm  to  the  relations  of  Continental  nations 
with  the  United  States  than  any  protective  tariff 
or  any  commercial  competition.  The  largest 
newspaper  of  Berlin  wrote  the  other  day  in  a 
character  sketch  of  the  American  :  "  The  Ameri- 
can does  not  hesitate  to  cheat  his  best  friend,  but 
the  most  astonishing  expression  of  the  American 
lack  of  conscience  is  given  in  politics,  which  has 
been  transformed  by  him  into  a  swamp  of  cor- 
ruption, detestable  as  that  of  Russia  and  China. 
Every  public  office  in  America  is  for  the  office- 
holder merely  an  arrangement  to  steal  and  to 
fill  his  own  pockets  at  the  expense  of  the  com- 
munity. That  is  the  ideal  purpose  of  life  for 
everybody,  from  the  simple  alderman  up  to  the 
senator  in  Washington.  The  American  is  always 
ready  to  sacrifice  all  the  interests  of  the  commu- 
nity to  his  private  interests ;  the  non  olet  of  the 
Emperor  Vespasian  has  changed  for  him  into  It 
smells  delightfully !  "  For  this  chance  quotation 
might  easily  be  substituted  a  hundred  others  of 
exactly  the  same  spirit.  And  such  ideas,  ham- 
mered daily  into  the  mind  of  the  German  nation, 
for  whom  the  honesty  and  integrity  of  the  civil 
service  is  the  basis  of  public  life,  must  necessarily 
produce  an  antipathy  which  makes  any  under- 
standing difficult.  It  has  surrounded  every  act  of 
America  with  a  cloud  of  selfishness  and  meanness 


24  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

by  which  even  the  most  harmless  action  becomes 
repugnant  to  sound  feelings,  and  by  which  the 
most  guileless  man  is  made  a  prey  to  the  news- 
papers of  Europe.  Granted  that  an  American 
action  can  never  have  idealistic  motives,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  distort  daily  occurrences  and  historical 
events  so  that  everything  appears  disgusting  to 
a  country  which  believes  itself  to  have  a  prior 
claim  upon  every  sort  of  idealistic  feeling,  and 
this  emotion  of  the  crowd  then  becomes  the 
spring  of  political  reactions. 

I  think  this  attitude  is  utterly  groundless.  More 
than  that,  I  think  the  true  American  is  an  idealist 
through  and  through.  I  perceive,  to  be  sure,  that 
his  idealism  is  often  loose  and  lax  and  ineffective, 
but  it  remains  idealism  nevertheless,  and  he  de- 
ceives himself  when  he  poses  as  a  realist,  like  his 
English  cousin.  What  most  quickly  misleads 
is,  doubtless,  his  consuming  interest  in  money- 
making,  together  with  the  sharp  struggle  for  ex- 
istence, the  gigantic  scale  of  his  undertakings, 
his  hasty,  impulsive  movements,  his  taste  for 
strong  sensational  stimuli,  his  spoils  politics,  and 
the  influence  of  corporations  upon  his  legislation. 
But  is  not  all  that  merely  the  surface  view  ?  The 
American  is  not  greedy  for  money ;  if  he  were,  he 
would  not  give  away  his  wealth  with  such  a  liberal 
hand,  and  would  not  put  aside  all  the  unidealistic 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    25 

European  schemes  of  money-making  which  exclude 
individual  initiative,  as,  for  instance,  the  pursuit 
of  dowries,  or,  on  a  lower  level,  the  tipping  sys- 
tem. The  American  runs  after  money  primarily 
for  the  pleasure  of  the  chase ;  it  is  the  spirit  of 
enterprise  that  spurs  him  on,  the  desire  to  make 
use  of  his  energies,  to  realize  his  personality.  And 
there  is  one  other  factor :  in  a  country  where 
political  conditions  have  excluded  titles  and  orders 
and  social  distinctions  in  general,  money  is  in  the 
end  the  only  means  of  social  discrimination,  and 
financial  success  becomes  thus  the  measurement 
of  the  ability  of  the  individual  and  of  his  power 
to  realize  himself  in  action.  That  the  struggle 
for  existence  is  sharper  here  than  in  Europe  is 
simply  a  fairy  tale.  In  a  country  where  the  great- 
est enterprises  are  undertaken  in  the  service  of 
charity,  and  where  the  natural  resources  of  the 
land  are  inexhaustible,  even  the  lowest  classes 
do  not  struggle  for  existence,  but,  seen  from  the 
Continental  standpoint,  merely  for  comfort;  of 
this  the  lyrical  character  of  the  discussions  of 
social  problems  here  compared  with  their  dramatic 
character  in  Germany  gives  the  fullest  evidence. 

The  manners  and  tastes  of  individuals  are  also 
easily  misinterpreted.  Those  hasty,  pushing  move- 
ments look  like  an  overflow  of  realistic  energies, 
but  they  are  simply  the  outcome  of  a  lack  of  co- 


26  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

ordination  and  adjustment.  The  quiet  move- 
ments of  the  Englishman  are  expressions  of 
strength  and  energy ;  the  hasty  movements  of  the 
Yankee  and  his  motor  restlessness,  manifested  in 
the  use  of  rocking-chairs  and  chewing-gum,  are 
mere  imperfections  of  the  motor  coordinating 
centres,  an  inability  to  suppress  and  to  inhibit. 
In  the  same  way,  the  demand  for  strong  stimuli 
is  not  at  all  a  symptom  of  over-irritation,  as  those 
usually  claim  it  to  be  who  consider  American  life 
a  nerve-wearing  clash  of  selfish  energies.  No,  it 
is  only  insufficient  training  through  the  lack  of 
aesthetic  traditions.  While  over-irritation  would 
demand  that  the  stimuli  grow  stronger  and 
stronger,  experience  shows  that  they  soften  and 
become  more  refined  from  year  to  year,  stamping 
to-day  as  vulgar  the  acknowledged  pleasure  of 
yesterday.  But  the  most  amusing  misunderstand- 
ing arises  when  the  American  himself  thinks  that 
he  proves  the  purely  practical  character  of  his 
life  by  the  eagerness  with  which  he  saves  his  time, 
on  the  ground  that  time  is  money.  It  strikes  me 
that,  next  to  the  public  funds,  nothing  is  so  much 
wasted  here  as  time.  Whether  it  is  wasted  in 
reading  the  endless  newspaper  reports  of  murder 
trials  or  in  sitting  on  the  base-ball  grounds,  in 
watching  a  variety  show  or  in  lying  in  bed,  in 
waiting  for  the  elevator  or  in  being  shaved  after 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS         27 

the  American  fashion,  in  attending  receptions  or 
in  enjoying  committee  meetings,  is  quite  unessen- 
tial. The  whole  scheme  of  American  education 
is  possible  only  in  a  country  which  is  rich  enough 
not  to  need  any  economy  of  time,  and  which  can 
therefore  allow  itself  the  luxury  of  not  asking  at 
what  age  a  young  man  begins  to  earn  his  own 
living.  The  American  shopkeeper  opens  his  store 
daily  one  hour  later  than  the  German  tradesman, 
and  the  American  physician  opens  his  office  three 
years  later  than  his  German  colleague  of  equal 
education.  This  may  be  very  good,  but  it  is  a 
prodigality  of  time  which  the  Germans  would  be 
unable  to  imitate. 

Still  another  prolific  source  of  European  com- 
ment is  the  anti-idealistic  character  of  American 
politics ;  but  the  critics  overlook  certain  essential 
points  when  they  deduce  from  it  the  intellectual 
state  of  the  average  citizen.  It  is,  for  instance,  not 
at  all  fair  to  compare  the  political  German  news- 
papers with  those  of  America,  and  to  consider 
them  as  mirrors  of  the  nation.  In  Germany  all 
the  newspapers  which  have  a  political  value  are  ex- 
clusively for  the  educated  classes,  while  in  Amer- 
ica every  paper,  and  especially  those  which  are 
seen  most,  is  written  for  the  masses.  Social  eco- 
nomic conditions  make  that  necessary ;  and  it  is, 
therefore,  natural  that  the  American  paper  makes 


28  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

concessions  to  vulgarity  which  would  be  impossi- 
ble on  the  other  side.  Moreover,  the  critics  over- 
look the  fact  that  the  machine  politicians  are  not 
the  representative  men  of  this  country.  The 
same  complex  historical  reasons  which  have  made 
the  party  spoils  system  and  the  boss  system  prac- 
tically necessary  forms  of  government  have  often 
brought  representatives  of  very  vulgar  instincts 
into  conspicuous  political  places;  but  that  does 
not  mean  that  the  higher  instincts  are  absent, 
still  less  that  the  alarming  accusations  which  fill 
the  press  have  more  than  a  grain  of  truth  in 
a  bushel  of  denunciation.  And,  finally,  it  must 
be  considered  that  politics  in  the  narrower  sense 
of  the  word,  problems  of  government  and  of 
international  relations,  which  occupy  the  central 
place  in  European  public  life,  have  been  here, 
on  the  whole,  in  the  background  as  compared 
with  economic  questions.  These  economic  ques- 
tions, the  tariff  or  silver  or  trusts,  naturally  ap- 
peal to  the  selfish  interests  of  different  groups; 
and  schemes  and  methods  which  would  be  low  if 
applied  to  controversies  genuinely  political  do  not 
exclude  idealism  if  applied  to  economic  struggles. 
Wherever  such  and  similar  factors  are  eliminated, 
the  American  in  politics  proves  himself  the  purest 
idealist,  the  best  men  come  to  the  front,  the  most 
sentimental  motives  dominate,  and  almost  no  one 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    29 

dares  to  damage  his  cause  by  appealing  to  selfish 
instincts.  Recent  events  have  once  more  proved 
that  beyond  question.  Whatever  the  senators 
and  sugar  men  may  have  thought  about  it,  the 
people  wanted  the  Cuban  war  for  sentimental 
reasons ;  and  if  the  uninformed  Continental  pa- 
pers maintain  that  the  desire  for  war  had  merely 
selfish  reasons,  they  falsify  history.  Is  not  the 
whole  debate  over  expansion  carried  on  with  highly 
idealistic  arguments  on  both  sides  ?  Did  not  even 
the  Anglo-American  alliance  get  hold  of  the  na- 
tion when  the  masses  found  an  idealistic  halo  for 
it,»discovering  that  those  Englishmen  whom  they 
wanted  to  fight  two  years  before  were  of  the  same 
blood  and  the  same  traditions  as  themselves? 
Is  it  not  entirely  sentimental  to  use  Washington's 
Farewell  Address  to-day  as  a  living  argument  with 
which  to  determine  practical  questions?  Even 
the  most  natural,  selfish,  and  practical  instinct 
can  be  overcome  with  the  typical  American  by  a 
catchy  sentimental  argument. 

This  high  spirit  of  the  individual  in  politics 
repeats  itself  much  more  plainly  in  private  life, 
where  helpfulness  and  honesty  seem  to  me  the 
most  essential  characteristics  of  the  American. 
Helpfulness  shows  itself  in  charity,  in  hospitality, 
in  projects  for  education  or  for  public  improve- 
ments, or  in  the  most  trivial  services  of  daily  life ; 


30  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

while  silent  confidence  in  the  honesty  of  one's  fel- 
low men  controls  practical  relations  here  in  a  way 
which  is  not  known  in  cautious  Europe,  and  could 
not  have  been  developed  if  that  confidence  were 
not  justified.  Add  to  it  the  American's  grateful- 
ness and  generosity,  his  elasticity  and  his  frank- 
ness, his  cleanliness  and  his  chastity,  his  humor 
and  his  fairness;  consider  the  vividness  of  his 
religious  emotion,  his  interest  hi  religious  and 
metaphysical  speculation,  his  eagerness  always  to 
realize  the  best  results  of  science,  —  in  short,  look 
around  everywhere  without  prejudice,  and  you 
cannot  doubt  that  behind  the  terrifying  mask  of 
the  selfish  realist  breathes  the  idealist,  who  is  con- 
trolled by  a  belief  in  ethical  values.  Unde- 
niably, every  one  of  these  characteristics  may 
develop  into  an  absurdity :  gratitude  may  trans- 
form the  capture  of  a  merchant  vessel  into  a  naval 
triumph,  speculative  desire  may  run  into  the 
blind  alleys  of  spiritualism,  fairness  may  lead  to 
the  defense  of  the  most  cranky  schemes,  and  the 
wish  for  steady  improvements  may  chase  the  re- 
former from  one  fad  to  another  ;  and  yet  it  is  all 
at  bottom  the  purest  idealism.  Whenever  I  have 
written  about  America  for  my  German  country- 
men, I  have  said :  "  You  are  right  to  hate  that 
selfish,  brutal,  vulgar,  corrupt  American  who  lives 
in  your  imagination ;  but  the  true  American  is  at 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    31 

least  as  much  an  idealist  as  yourself,  and  Emerson 
comes  nearer  to  representing  his  spirit  than  do 
the  editorial  writers  of  the  New  York  Journal." 
If  I  had  to  draw  the  American  with  a  few  lines, 
I  should  emphasize  three  mental  elements.  All 
the  essential  features  of  his  public  life  spring 
from  the  spirit  of  self-determination,  which  was 
developed  by  his  separation  from  his  mother 
country ;  the  features  of  his  economic  lif e,  from 
the  spirit  of  self-activity  which  was  developed 
by  his  pioneer  life ;  and  the  features  of  his  intellec- 
tual life  from  the  spirit  of  self-perfection,  which 
has  a  partly  utilitarian,  partly  Puritan  origin. 
Every  one  of  these  three  strong  tendencies  involves 
dangers,  but  essentially  they  are  forces  of  purely 
idealistic  power. 


To-day  I  am  writing  for  American  readers 
only,  and  they  would  not  show  that  fairness  which 
I  have  just  praised  if  they  allowed  me  to  prove 
the  fallacy  of  prejudices  merely  when  the  preju- 
dices exist  on  the  other  side,  and  not  when  they 
are  themselves  at  fault.  I  may,  therefore,  be  per- 
mitted to  touch  at  least  one  of  the  many  precon- 
ceived ideas  with  which  the  Americans  regard  the 
German  nation.  I  choose,  as  one  case  among 
many,  the  settled  opinion  that  the  Germans,  the 


32  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

poor  suffering  subjects  of  Emperor  William,  have 
no  liberty ;  that  the  men  oppress  the  women,  the 
higher  classes  oppress  the  lower  classes,  the  no- 
bility oppresses  the  people,  the  army  oppresses  the 
civilians,  and  the  Emperor  oppresses  all  together. 
It  must  seem  to  the  American  newspaper  reader 
as  if  India  and  Russia  and  Turkey  had  combined 
to  invent  the  machinery  of  German  civilization, 
in  which  the  soldiers  are  tortured,  the  laborers 
imprisoned,  the  radicals  treated  as  criminals,  the 
women  treated  as  slaves  or  as  dolls,  and  the  king 
treated  as  infallible.  To  be  sure,  such  a  text  is 
not  unknown  in  Germany  itself ;  the  orators  of  the 
Social  Democratic  party  would  heartily  applaud 
it,  but  it  would  not  be  the  most  effective  party 
cry  of  the  demagogues  if  the  spirit  of  freedom 
were  not  the  deepest  element  of  the  German 
nature,  and  the  warning  that  their  freedom  is 
threatened  the  most  exciting  stimulus.  Those, 
however,  who  do  not  wish  for  a  distortion  of  the 
facts  are  sure  that  there  is  no  people  under  the 
sun  with  more  valuable  inner  freedom  than  the 
Germans,  who,  since  Luther  and  Kant,  have 
started  every  great  movement  toward  freedom, 
and  who  would  not  have  been  at  the  head  of  the 
world  of  science  for  centuries  had  not  freedom  of 
thought  been  their  life  element,  and  the  German 
university  the  freest  place  on  earth. 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    33 

Moreover,  if  I  consider  the  outer  forms  of 
life,  I  do  not  hesitate  to  maintain  that  Germany 
is  even  in  that  respect  freer  than  the  United 
States.  The  right  to  insult  the  President,  and  to 
cross  the  railroad  tracks  where  it  is  dangerous, 
and  to  ignore  the  law  if  a  great  trust  stands 
behind  one,  and  to  spread  the  poison  of  anarchis- 
tic doctrines,  is  not  freedom,  but  lack  of  social 
development,  the  survival  of  a  lower  civilization,  a 
pseudo-freedom  whose  symptoms,  fortunately,  are 
disappearing  from  year  to  year  in  this  country 
also.  And  they  will  disappear  still  more  rapidly 
now,  since  the  echo  of  the  shot  in  Buffalo  will  not 
die  out  soon.  The  people  will  understand  that 
not  only  the  Polish  and  Italian  fanatics  who  shoot 
and  stab  are  guilty,  but  those  who  allow  anarchy 
to  be  preached.  However,  the  suppression  of 
such  doctrines  of  lawlessness  is  impossible  if  the 
principle  is  not  acknowledged  that  the  state  has 
the  right  and  the  duty  to  limit  speech  for  the  pro- 
tection of  its  possessions,  —  and  no  possession  is 
greater  than  the  authority  belonging  to  our  high- 
est office,  which  is  impugned  not  by  the  anarchist 
only,  but  by  every  one  who  uses  vile  language 
against  the  President.  Freedom  is  not  absence 
of  limitations.  The  social  intercourse  of  the  well- 
mannered  is  not  less  free  than  that  of  ill-bred 
men,  though  they  obey  many  more  rules,  and  tho 


34  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

expression  of  thought  is  not  less  free  when  we 
obey  the  laws  of  good  language ;  no,  it  is  freer 
than  the  expression  of  those  who  speak  slang. 
Germans  live  under  more  complicated  and  sys- 
tematized rules  than  Americans,  and  for  this  very 
reason  they  have  greater  freedom  than  is  possible 
in  the  less  restrained  rush  of  American  life. 

The  most  typical  case  is,  of  course,  that  of  the 
political  government.  The  American  takes  it  for 
granted  that  the  republican  state  form  represents 
a  higher  level  than  the  monarchical  one,  and  that 
therefore  the  German  who  comes  to  these  shores 
must  feel  as  if  he  were  coming  out  into  the  fresh 
air  from  a  prison.  The  educated  Germans  at 
home  feel  that  it  is  with  the  monarchy  as  with  the 
church.  Too  many  men  are  adherents  of  the 
church  from  low  motives,  from  fear  and  supersti- 
tion and  laziness.  When  such  narrow-minded  per- 
sons become  freethinkers  and  reject  the  church, 
they  manifest  individual  progress;  but  that  does 
not  mean  that  destructive  skepticism  represents  the 
highest  possible  relation  to  the  church,  and  that 
to  become  an  adherent  of  the  church  means  fall- 
ing back  to  the  lower  stage.  On  the  contrary, 
the  step  from  skeptical  enlightenment  to  an  eth- 
ical belief  is  in  every  respect  progress :  it  is  the 
step  from  rationalism  to  idealism.  The  church 
can  thus  stand  for  the  lowest  and  for  the  highest, 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    35 

and  those  who  are  in  the  middle,  and  have  not 
yet  reached  the  last  stage,  may  well  think  that  the 
highest  is  below  their  level.  Just  this  manifold- 
ness  of  stages,  the  Germans  maintain,  character- 
izes the  forms  of  states.  To  be  sure,  the  mob  is 
monarchical  from  low  motives,  and  those  who  hold 
that  the  business  of  the  state  must  be  in  the  hands 
of  a  man  whom  the  majority  has  selected  certainly 
represent  a  higher  moral  stratum  than  those  who 
support  the  throne  from  selfishness  and  laziness 
and  cowardice.  But  again,  a  higher  standpoint  is 
possible.  The  true  belief  in  monarchy  means  the 
belief  in  symbols  which  characterizes  historical 
thinking  as  over  against  naturalistic  thinking. 
And  a  monarch,  as  the  historical  symbol  of  the 
emotional  ideals  of  a  nation,  wholly  outside  of  the 
field  of  political  struggles  and  elections,  needs  that 
symbolic  protection  against  reproach  which  ap- 
pears, seen  from  a  purely  materialistic  point  of 
view,  as  the  ridiculous  punishment  of  lese-majeste. 
The  same  is  true  of  all  the  symbolic  values  which 
radiate  from  the  centre  :  the  titles  and  degrees  and 
decorations  representing  social  differentiation  seem 
childish  to  an  eye  which  sees  the  world  merely  as 
a  naturalistic  mechanism,  but  invaluable  to  the 
eye  which  traces  the  outlines  of  the  historical 
spirit  in  the  world.  Without  differentiation  there 
can  be  no  complicated  social  life ;  until  the  stage 


36  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

of  symbolic  thinking  is  reached,  quantitative  dif- 
ferences must  furnish  the  tags,  and  money  furnish 
the  only  standard.  But  the  flag  is  more  than 
a  piece  of  cloth,  and  the  higher  development  of 
symbols  means  a  higher  civilization.  The  Ameri- 
can who,  from  the  standpoint  of  his  naturalistic 
thinking,  looks  down  contemptuously  on  the  Ger- 
man social  and  political  organization  hinders,  so 
it  seems  to  the  foreigner,  the  progress  of  his  own 
country ;  America  has  become  too  great  to  stop 
at  a  social  philosophy  characteristic  of  the  eigh- 
teenth century.  An  heroic  revival  is  at  hand,  im- 
perialism awakens  echoes  throughout  the  land, 
and  days  are  near  when  Americans  will  under- 
stand better  what  we  mean  by  the  symbols  of 
German  history,  and  that  it  is  not  lack  of  free- 
dom that  prevents  us  from  believing  overmuch  in 
majority  votes  and  the  dogma  of  equality. 

But  I  am  not  at  all  afraid  to  turn  the  discus- 
sion from  the  philosophical  to  the  practical  side, 
from  the  idea  of  monarchy  to  the  present  Em- 
peror. I  think  there  is  no  other  man  with  whom 
the  American  newspapers  have  been  so  successful 
in  substituting  the  caricature  for  the  real  portrait. 
The  irony  of  the  case  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  hun- 
dreds of  amusing  stories  about  the  Emperor  all 
come  from  the  camp  of  those  bureaucrats  with 
whom  the  Americans  would  sympathize  least  of 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    37 

all.  There  is  nothing  more  incompatible  with  the 
American  spirit  than  the  temper  of  the  pedants 
whose  petty  purposes  the  papers  here  have  fur- 
thered, while  there  is  nothing  more  in  accord 
with  the  American  mood  than  the  true  nature  of 
the  Kaiser.  The  one  living  American  whose  per- 
sonality most  closely  resembles  that  of  the  Em- 
peror William  is  the  brilliant  young  President  of 
the  United  States,  who  would  have  been  elected 
as  leader  of  the  nation  a  few  years  hence  if  fate 
had  saved  his  beloved  predecessor.  The  Germans 
feel  in  the  same  way ;  if  Germany  were  to  be- 
come a  republic,  the  people  would  shudder  at 
the  thought  of  having  one  of  the  parliamentary 
leaders  of  to-day  or  an  average  general  become 
President,  but  they  would  elect  the  present  Em- 
peror with  enthusiasm  as  the  first  President ;  he 
is  the  most  interesting,  energetic,  talented,  in- 
dustrious, and  conscientious  personality  of  our 
public  life.  Those,  however,  who  maintain  that 
the  Emperor  is  an  autocrat  do  not  understand  how 
closely  the  German  monarchy,  not  only  through 
the  constitutional  and  parliamentary  limitations 
imposed  upon  it,  but  still  more  in  its  inner  forces, 
is  identical  with  the  national  will.  The  powers 
of  the  American  President,  far  greater  than  those 
of  the  English  King,  are  especially  with  respect 
to  foreign  politics  not  at  all  less  than  those  of  the 


38  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

German  ruler.  A  President  whose  ministers  can- 
not be  interpellated  by  the  parliament,  and  whose 
word  can  practically  turn  peace  into  war  and  alli- 
ance into  annexation,  in  short,  with  tremendous 
powers,  parties  in  the  grasp  of  bosses,  city  admin- 
istrations under  the  whip  of  spoilsmen,  the  eco- 
nomic world  under  the  tyranny  of  trusts,  and  all 
together  under  the  autocracy  of  yellow-press  edi- 
tors—  No,  I  love  and  admire  America,  but 
Germany  really  seems  to  me  freer. 

I  have  tried  to  show  that  it  is  equally  one-sided 
and  unfair  for  the  Germans  to  maintain  that  the 
Americans  have  no  idealism,  and  for  the  Ameri- 
cans to  maintain  that  the  Germans  have  no  sense 
of  freedom ;  the  two  cases  served  merely  as  chance 
illustrations,  instead  of  which  I  could  have  chosen 
many  others.  Wherever  we  look  we  find  the 
same  fact ;  that  the  two  great  nations  see  each 
other  through  distorting  spectacles,  and  do  not 
understand  each  other's  real  character.  They  mis- 
interpret mere  gestures,  and  therefore  do  not  see 
the  deeper  similarity  of  their  natures  and  their 
ideals.  All  this,  of  course,  does  not  suggest  that 
they  are  without  important  differences,  but  the 
differences  seem  to  me  much  more  the  results  of 
outer  conditions  than  of  character.  In  the  outer 
conditions  no  stronger  contrast  is  possible,  —  the 
Americans  with  a  new  national  culture  in  an  un- 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS    39 

developed  realm  of  immense  material  resources ; 
the  Germans  in  a  realm  of  limited  resources, 
but  with  an  old  traditional  culture.  An  old  tra- 
ditional culture  signifies  a  system  of  institutions 
in  which  the  best  spirit  of  past  efforts  is  con- 
densed, and  into  which  the  individual  is  put  by 
birth.  The  individual  may  be  low-minded,  and 
yet  he  must  move  in  the  given  tracks,  and  is  thus 
shaped  to  ends  nobler  than  his  own.  The  result 
is  that,  in  Germany,  the  institutions  are  often  bet- 
ter than  the  individuals,  the  forms  of  civilization 
higher  than  their  wearers,  the  public  conscience 
wider  awake  than  the  private.  In  the  United 
States,  with  its  new  culture,  just  the  opposite  con- 
dition must  prevail;  the  individuals  are  better, 
much  better,  than  the  institutions  ;  the  individu- 
als are  thoroughly  idealistic,  while  the  external 
forms  of  social  life  are  by  no  means  penetrated  to 
the  same  degree  with  the  idealistic  spirit;  they 
are  still  too  often  the  survivals  of  the  time  when 
the  new  land  had  to  be  opened  in  a  severe  struggle 
for  livelihood,  and  the  commercial  resources  had 
to  be  developed  at  all  costs.  Consequently,  these 
forms  are  now  on  as  great  a  scale  as  the  resources 
themselves,  but  they  appeal  still  too  often  to  the 
lower  instincts,  and  too  often  tend  to  pull  men 
down  instead  of  raising  them  up.  The  individual 
conscience  is  here  higher  than  the  public  con- 


40  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

science ;  individual  initiative  and  responsibility  are 
•wonderful,  but  the  encouragement  and  inspira- 
tion which  come  to  the  individual  from  his  public 
institutions  are  inadequate. 

The  psychical  effect  of  this  situation  is  a  neces- 
sary one.  In  Germany,  where  the  institutions 
take  the  lead,  the  result  is  that  the  average  man 
too  easily  believes  he  has  fulfilled  his  duty  when 
he  appears  to  satisfy  the  public  requirements,  and 
the  spirit  of  individual  initiative  therefore  slum- 
bers. In  America  this  danger  certainly  does  not 
exist,  but  the  dangers  resulting  from  the  lack  of 
inspiring  energy  in  the  centre  are  not  less.  In- 
stead of  reinforcing  the  highest  emotions,  the  in- 
stitutions adjust  themselves  to  the  lower  instincts, 
and  the  psychological  effect  is  that  the  higher 
energies  are  repressed,  and  the  feeling  of  duty 
becomes  less  urgent  in  public  life.  We  see  the 
newspapers  crowded  with  matter  adapted  to  the 
lowest  tastes  of  the  mob,  political  results  deter- 
mined by  appeals  to  the  most  selfish  desires,  the 
theatres  relying  upon  the  cheapest  vaudeville, 
the  churches  filled  and  sermons  made  attractive 
by  sensational  and  trivial  matters,  —  everywhere 
the  same  willingness  to  do  what  the  public  likes, 
and  nowhere  the  question  what  the  public  ought 
to  have.  And  this  spirit  must  slowly  undermine 
every  public  function.  Such  a  system  inevitably 


THE  AMERICANS  AND  THE  GERMANS         41 

provides  a  hothouse  of  mediocrity ;  where  there 
exists  no  social  premium  upon  the  highest  efforts 
toward  ideal  interests,  where  no  general  appre- 
ciation stimulates  individual  energies,  there  is  no 
maximum  effect  to  be  expected.  The  good  per- 
sonal material  secures  a  high  average,  but  no  great 
men  ;  everywhere  fair  solid  work,  nowhere  a  mas- 
terpiece ;  ten  thousand  excellent  public  lectures 
every  winter,  and  not  one  great  thought.  The 
social  psychologist  who  begins  to  analyze  the  re- 
spective national  characters  has  thus  no  reason 
for  mere  eulogy ;  he  sees  shortcomings  and  de- 
fects on  both  sides,  and  sees  still  more  clearly  how 
much  the  two  nations  might  learn  from  each 
other.  But  he  does  not  find  traces  of  those  char- 
acteristics which  in  each  arouse  the  disrespect  and 
disgust  of  the  other.  The  Germans  are  not  ser- 
vile and  reactionary,  the  Americans  are  not  cor- 
rupt and  materialistic  and  brutal.  The  two  peo- 
ples are  different,  but  the  differences  are  of  a  kind, 
which  suggests  mutual  supplementation  and  in- 
terest in  each  other,  not  antipathy  and  aversion. 
Neither  one  is  made  up  of  angels,  but  of  men 
who  would  like  each  other  most  sincerely  if  their 
foolish  narrow-minded  prejudices  were  removed. 
These  prejudices  alone  in  regard  to  character,  and 
no  objective  reason,  have  brought  about  the  mood 
that  occasions  petty  quarrels  and  unnecessary  fric- 


42  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

tion  between  Germans  and  Americans,  that  is,  be- 
tween the  two  most  healthy,  most  vigorous,  most 
promising,  and  at  the  same  time  most  similar  na- 
tions of  all  which  have  entered  on  the  twentieth 
century. 


II 

EDUCATION 

I 

I  FEEL  myself  on  the  whole  pretty  free  from 
autobiographical  tendencies ;  I  am  quite  ready  to 
double  the  number  of  my  years,  at  least,  before  I 
begin  on  memories  and  confessions.  At  one  point 
only  has  the  desire  for  an  autobiographical  erup- 
tion grown  in  me  steadily :  I  am  impelled  to  tell 
the  story  of  my  school  time. 

I  remember  exactly  how  the  impulse  took  shape 
in  my  mind.  It  was  at  a  teachers'  meeting.  The 
teachers  were  discussing  how  to  relieve  the  over- 
burdening of  the  school  children,  and  how  to 
make  tolerable  the  drudgery  of  the  classroom. 
Some  demonstrated  that  all  the  trouble  came  from 
the  old-fashioned  idea  of  prescribed  courses :  if 
the  courses  were  freely  chosen,  according  to  the 
talents  and  interests  of  the  pupils,  their  sufferings 
would  be  ended.  Others  maintained  that  the 
teachers  were  guilty :  that  they  did  not  know 
enough  about  educational  aims,  about  child  study 
and  psychology  and  the  theory  of  education. 
What  else  than  drudgery  was  to  be  expected, 


44  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

under  such  inadequate  pedagogues  ?  The  fight 
between  the  two  parties  went  on  with  an  inspiring 
fullness  of  argument,  and  thus  I  fell  into  a  deep 
and  sound  sleep.  And  the  sleep  carried  me  away 
from  the  elms  of  New  England  to  my  dear  old 
home  on  the  shore  of  the  Baltic  Sea,  where  I  spent 
my  school  days.  I  saw  once  more  my  classmates 
and  my  teachers ;  I  strolled  once  more,  as  a  little 
boy  with  my  schoolbooks,  through  the  quaint 
streets  of  Danzig  ;  I  passed  again  through  the 
feelings  of  more  than  twenty  years  ago.  Sud- 
denly I  awoke  at  the  stroke  of  the  gavel  of  the 
chairman,  who  solemnly  announced  that  the  ma- 
jority had  voted  for  a  compromise :  the  com- 
munity ought  to  see  to  it  that  both  free  election 
and  the  pedagogical  information  of  the  teachers 
were  furthered.  At  this  point  the  meeting  was 
adjourned,  and  the  teachers  went  to  the  next  hall 
for  luncheon :  there  some  minor  speeches  were 
served  up,  on  the  pernicious  influence  of  the  clas- 
sical languages,  and  on  the  value  of  stenography 
and  typewriting  for  a  liberal  education.  It  was 
then  that  the  autobiography  budded  in  my  mind. 
My  instinct  told  me  that  I  must  make  haste  in 
the  undertaking;  for  if  I  should  hear  for  some 
years  to  come  all  these  sighs  of  pity  for  those  who 
were  instructed  without  election  and  pedagogy,  I 
might  finally  get  confused,  and  extend  the  same 


EDUCATION  45 

pity  to  my  own  childhood,  convinced  that  my 
school  life  was  a  deplorable  misfortune.  I  hasten, 
therefore,  to  publish  this  chapter  of  my  life's 
story  as  advance  sheets,  some  decades  before  the 
remainder,  at  a  period  when  the  gap  of  time  is 
still  small  enough  to  be  bridged  by  a  fair  memory. 
My  great-grandfather  lived  in  Silesia.  But 
perhaps  it  may  be  too  long  a  story  if  I  develop 
my  case  from  its  historical  beginning ;  I  will 
shorten  it  by  saying  at  once  that  I  entered  the 
gymnasium  in  Danzig  at  nine  years  of  age,  and 
left  it  at  eighteen.  I  had  previously  attended 
a  private  preparatory  school,  and  subsequently  I 
went  to  the  universities  of  Leipzig  and  Heidel- 
berg. It  is  the  gymnasium  period  of  which  I  wish 
to  speak.  I  have  no  right  to  boast  of  it ;  I  was 
a  model  neither  of  industry  nor  of  carefulness.  I 
was  not  quite  so  bad  as  some  of  my  best  friends 
among  my  classmates,  but  I  see,  with  real  repent- 
ance, from  the  reports  which  I  have  carefully 
kept  together,  that  I  was  not  attentive  enough  in 
Latin  grammar  ;  it  seems  that  in  the  lower  classes, 
also,  my  French  did  not  find  the  full  appreciation 
of  my  teachers,  and  I  should  feel  utterly  ashamed 
to  report  what  their  misled  judgment  recorded  of 
my  singing  and  drawing.  I  was  just  a  fair  aver- 
age. The  stages  of  knowledge  which  we  reached 
may  most  easily  be  characterized  by  a  comparison 


46  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

with  the  standards  of  New  England.  At  fifteen 
years  I  was  in  Untersekunda ;  and  there  is  not  the 
slightest  doubt  that,  at  that  stage,  all  my  classmates 
were  prepared  to  pass  the  entrance  examinations 
for  Harvard  College.  As  a  matter  of  course,  Ger- 
man must  here  be  substituted  for  English,  German 
history  and  literature  for  the  English  correspond- 
ents. We  should  have  chosen,  at  our  entrance, 
that  scheme  in  which  both  Latin  and  Greek  are 
taken.  The  Abiturientenexamen  at  the  end  of 
the  school  time,  the  examination  which  opens  the 
door  to  the  university,  came  three  years  later. 
It  was  a  difficult  affair,  somewhat  more  difficult 
than  in  recent  years ;  and,  from  a  pretty  careful 
analysis  of  the  case,  I  can  say  that  very  few  Har- 
vard students  have  entered  the  senior  class  who 
would  have  been  able  to  pass  that  examination  re- 
spectably. In  the  smaller  colleges  of  the  coun- 
try, the  senior  might  be  expected  to  reach  that 
level  at  graduation.  No  doubt,  even  after  substi- 
tuting German  for  English,  almost  every  senior 
may  have  taken  one  or  many  courses  which  lie 
fully  outside  of  the  circle  in  which  we  moved. 
The  college  man  who  specializes  in  political  econ- 
omy or  philosophy  or  chemistry  from  his  fresh- 
man year  knows,  in  his  special  field,  far  more  than 
any  one  of  us  knew  ;  but  if  we  take  a  composite 
picture  of  all  seniors,  the  boy  who  leaves  the  gym- 


EDUCATION  47 

nasium  is  not  at  a  disadvantage  in  the  comparison 
of  intellectual  physiognomy,  although  far  less  ma- 
ture, conformant  to  his  much  lower  age.  If  any 
man  in  Dartmouth  or  Amherst  takes  his  bache- 
lor's degree  with  that  knowledge  in  mathematics, 
history,  geography,  literature,  Latin,  Greek, 
French,  and  physics  which  we  had  on  leaving 
school,  he  is  sure  to  graduate  with  honors.  Our 
entrance  into  the  university  can  thus  be  compared 
merely  with  the  entrance  into  the  post-graduate 
courses.  Our  three  highest  gymnasium  classes 
alone  correspond  to  the  college;  and  whoever 
compares  the  German  university  with  the  Ameri- 
can college,  instead  of  with  the  graduate  school,  is 
misled  either  by  the  age  of  the  students  or  by  the 
external  forms  of  student  life  and  instruction. 

I  reached  thus,  at  the  end  of  my  school  time, 
as  a  pupil  of  average  standing,  the  scholarly  level 
of  an  average  college  graduate  in  this  country. 
I  was  then  eighteen  years  of  age;  the  average 
bachelor  of  arts  is  at  least  three  years  older.  How 
did  that  difference  come  about  ?  The  natural  ex- 
planation of  the  case  is  that  we  poor  boys  were 
overburdened,  systematically  tortured  by  a  cruel 
system  of  overwork,  which  absorbed  all  our  ener- 
gies for  the  one  goal,  the  passing  of  the  examina- 
tion. I  do  not  dare  to  contradict  this.  But  the  one 
thing  I  may  claim  in  favor  of  this  scheme  of  over- 


48  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

loading  is  the  wonderful  skill  with  which  the 
school  administration  was  able  to  hide  these  evi- 
dent facts  so  completely  from  our  eyes  that  nei- 
ther my  classmates  nor  I,  nor  our  parents,  nor  our 
teachers  themselves,  ever  perceived  the  slightest 
trace  of  them.  The  facts  were  so  shamelessly 
concealed  from  us  that  we  poor  deceived  boys 
thought  all  the  time  that  the  work  was  a  pleasure, 
that  we  had  leisure  for  everything,  and  that  we 
were  all  as  happy  as  the  day  was  long. 

I  think  that  I  spent,  during  all  those  ten  years, 
about  three  hours  a  day  in  the  fresh  air,  walking 
and  playing,  swimming  and  skating  ;  yet  I  found 
time  from  my  ninth  year  to  practice  on  the  violon- 
cello one  hour  every  day,  and  the  novels  which  I 
wrote  may  have  lacked  everything  else,  but  they 
never  lacked  length.  Besides  such  individual 
schemes  to  fill  our  vacant  time,  we  cooperated  for 
that  purpose  in  clubs,  from  the  lowest  classes  to 
the  highest :  at  ten  years  we  played  instructive 
games ;  at  twelve  years  we  read  classical  dramas, 
each  taking  one  role ;  at  fifteen  we  read  papers 
on  art  and  literature ;  and  at  seventeen  we  had 
a  regular  debating  club.  And  all  the  time,  at 
every  stage,  there  were  private  theatricals,  and 
excursions  into  the  country,  and  dancing  lessons, 
and  horseback-riding,  and  coeducation  with  the 
education  left  out;  for  the  poor  overburdened 


EDUCATION  49 

girls  helped  us  to  bear  the  load  by  suffering  in 
common. 

Every  one  of  us  had,  of  course,  the  minor  spe- 
cial interests  and  amusements  which  suited  his 
own  taste ;  there  was  no  lack  of  opportunity  to 
follow  up  these  inclinations  ;  to  use  the  terminol- 
ogy of  modern  pedagogy,  we  "  found  "  ourselves. 
I  found  myself,  too  ;  but  —  and  in  this  respect  I 
did  not  behave  exactly  according  to  the  prescribed 
scheme  of  this  same  pedagogy,  I  am  sorry  to  say  — 
I  found  myself  every  two  or  three  years,  as  some 
one  very  different  from  the  former  individual  whom 
I  had  had  the  pleasure  to  discover.  In  the  first 
years  of  my  school  time  botany  was  all  my  desire. 
We  lived  in  the  summer  in  a  country  house  with 
a  large  garden,  and  a  forest  near  the  garden ;  and 
every  minute  I  could  spare  belonged  to  the  plants 
which  I  collected  and  pressed.  It  became  a  boy- 
ish passion.  If  I  had  to  write  a  novel,  this  feature 
of  the  botanical  enthusiasm  of  the  boy  would  be 
a  very  poor  invention,  if  the  final  outcome  were 
to  be  a  being  who  has  hardly  the  talent  to  dis- 
criminate a  mushroom  from  an  apple  tree,  and  for 
whom  nothing  in  the  world  appears  so  dry  as 
squeezed  plants.  But  I  have  not  to  invent  here : 
I  am  reporting.  I  thus  confess  frankly  my 
weakness  for  dissected  vegetables  :  it  lasted  about 
three  years.  Then  came  my  passion  for  physical 


60  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

instruments :  an  uncle  gave  me  on  my  birthday 
some  dainty  little  electrical  machines,  and  soon 
the  whole  house  was  overspun  with  electrical 
wires.  I  was  thus,  at  twelve  years,  on  the  best 
road  to  discover  the  patent-hunter  in  my  per- 
sonality, when  a  friend  with  theological  inclina- 
tions interfered :  we  began  to  study  comparative 
religion,  Islamism  in  particular.  Thus,  at  fifteen 
years  of  age,  we  learned  Arabic  from  the  gram- 
mar, and  read  the  Koran.  Now,  finally,  my  true 
nature  was  found ;  my  friend  wrote  prophetically 
in  my  album  that  we  should  both  go  out  as  mis- 
sionaries to  the  Arabs,  —  and  yet  I  missed  the 
connection,  and  went  to  Boston  instead  of  to 
Mecca,  and  forgot  on  the  way  all  my  Arabic. 
But  trouble  began  soon  afterward,  —  friends  of 
mine  found,  in  digging  on  their  farm,  an  old 
Slavic  grave  containing  interesting  urns.  I  be- 
came fascinated  by  ethnological  discoveries,  and, 
as  important  excavations  were  going  on  in  the 
neighborhood  of  my  native  town,  I  spent  every 
free  afternoon  and  whole  vacation  weeks  in  the 
ethnological  camp,  studied  the  literature  of  the 
subject,  and  dug  up  urns  for  our  town  museum, 
and  wrote,  at  the  age  of  seventeen,  a  never  pub- 
lished book  on  the  prehistoric  anthropology  of 
West  Prussia.  Then  the  happy  school  days  came 
to  an  end,  and  yet  I  had  not  found  myself.  I 


EDUCATION  61 

have  never  digged  any  more.  I  did  not  become 
an  ethnologist,  and  if  a  visitor  to  Cambridge 
insists  on  my  showing  him  the  Harvard  sights, 
and  we  come  into  the  ethnological  museum,  the 
urns  bore  me  so  utterly  that  it  is  hard  for  me  to 
believe  that  in  earlier  days  they  made  all  my 
happiness.  I  went,  then,  to  the  university  with 
something  like  a  liberal  education ;  supplemented 
the  school  studies  by  some  broader  studies  in  lit- 
erature, science,  and  philosophy;  and  when,  in 
the  middle  of  my  philosophical  studies,  I  came  to 
psychology,  the  lightning  struck.  Exactly  ten 
years  after  leaving  school,  years  devoted  to  psy- 
chological studies  and  psychological  teaching  in 
German  universities,  Harvard  called  me  over  the 
ocean  as  professor  of  psychology.  I  thus  found 
my  life  work ;  and  in  all  these  years  I  have  never 
had  an  hour  in  which  I  doubted  that  it  was  my 
life  work.  Yet  I  did  not  approach  it,  in  spite  of 
all  those  various  fanciful  interests,  before  I  reached 
the  intellectual  level  of  the  graduate  school. 

II 

I  have  spoken  of  these  boyish  passions  not  only 
to  show  that  we  had  an  abundance  of  free  time 
and  the  best  opportunities  for  the  growth  of 
individual  likings,  but  for  the  purpose  of  empha- 
sizing — •  and  I  add  this  with  all  the  gratitude  of 


62  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

my  heart  to  my  parents,  my  teachers,  and  the  com- 
munity —  that  the  school  never  took  the  smallest 
account  of  those  inclinations,  and  never  allowed 
me  to  take  the  slightest  step  aside  from  the  pre- 
scribed school  work.  My  school  work  was  not 
adjusted  to  botany  at  nine  years  because  I  played 
with  an  herbarium,  and  at  twelve  to  physics 
because  I  indulged  in  noises  with  home-made 
electric  bells,  and  at  fifteen  to  Arabic,  an  elec- 
tive which  I  miss  still  in  several  high  schools, 
even  in  Brookline  and  Roxbury.  The  more 
my  friends  and  I  wandered  afield  with  our  lit- 
tle superficial  interests  and  talents  and  passions, 
the  more  was  the  straightforward  earnestness  of 
the  school  our  blessing;  and  ah1  that  beautified 
and  enriched  our  youth,  and  gave  to  it  freshness 
and  liveliness,  would  have  turned  out  to  be  our 
ruin,  if  our  elders  had  taken  it  seriously,  and  had 
formed  a  life's  programme  out  of  petty  caprices 
and  boyish  inclinations.  I  still  remember  how  my 
father  spoke  to  me,  when  I  was  a  boy  of  twelve. 
I  was  insisting  that  Latin  would  be  of  no  use  to 
me,  as  I  should  become  a  poet  or  a  physicist. 
He  answered :  "  If  a  lively  boy  has  to  follow  a 
country  road,  it  is  a  natural  and  good  thing  for 
him  to  stroll  a  hundred  times  from  the  way,  and 
pick  flowers  and  run  for  butterflies  over  the 
fields  on  both  sides  of  the  road.  But  if  we  say  to 


EDUCATION  63 

him,  '  You  need  not  keep  the  road ;  follow  your 
butterflies/  where  will  he  find  himself  at  night- 
fall?" 

My  question  was,  how  our  German  school  made 
it  possible  to  bring  us  so  much  more  quickly, 
without  overburdening  us,  to  the  level  of  the 
American  senior.  I  have  given  so  far  only  a 
negative  characteristic  of  the  school  in  saying  that 
it  made  no  concession  to  individual  likings  and 
preferences :  that  is,  of  course,  not  a  sufficient 
explanation.  If  I  think  back,  I  feel  sure  that  the 
chief  source  of  this  success  was  the  teachers. 
But  in  regard  to  the  teachers,  also,  I  may  begin 
with  a  negative  statement :  our  teachers  did  not 
know  too  much  about  the  theory  of  education,  or 
about  the  history  of  pedagogy  or  psychology; 
and  while  I  heard  about  some  of  them  gossip  of  a 
rather  malicious  kind,  I  never  heard  that  any  one 
of  them  had  read  a  book  on  child  study.  The 
other  day  I  found  in  a  paper  on  secondary  educa- 
tion a  lamentation  to  this  effect :  that  the  Ameri- 
can schools  have  still  many  teachers  who  have  no 
reflective  theories  on  the  aim  with  which  they 
teach  their  subjects,  and  the  educational  values 
which  belong  to  them.  The  author  said :  "  I 
shall  not  soon  forget  the  surprise  with  which  an 
intelligent  teacher  said  to  me,  not  long  ago,  '  An 
aim !  I  have  no  aim  in  teaching ;  that  is  a  new 


54  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

idea/  "  "  Such  teachers  of  Latin  and  algebra," 
the  author  compassionately  added,  "meant  that 
the  choice  of  these  subjects  as  fit  subject-matter 
of  instruction  was  no  concern  of  theirs;  they 
taught  these  subjects  as  best  they  could,  because 
these  subjects  were  in  the  course  of  study."  Ex- 
actly such  old-fashioned  teachers  were  ours.  My 
literature  teacher  was  never  troubled  by  the  sus- 
picion that  literature  may  be  less  useful  than 
meteorology  and  organic  chemistry,  neither  of 
which  had  a  place  in  our  school ;  and  if  some  one 
had  asked  my  Greek  teacher,  "  What  is  the  value 
of  the  instruction  in  Greek?  What  is  your  aim 
in  reading  Sophocles  and  Plato  with  your  young 
friends  in  the  class  ? "  he  would  have  answered 
that  he  had  never  thought  about  it,  any  more  than 
why  he  was  willing  to  breathe  and  to  live.  He 
taught  his  Greek  as  best  he  could  in  the  place  to 
which  he  was  called,  but  he  certainly  never  took 
it  as  his  concern  to  reflect  whether  Greek  instruc- 
tion ought  not,  after  all,  to  be  discontinued ;  he 
left  that  to  the  principal  and  to  the  government. 
His  Plato  and  his  Sophocles,  his  Homer  and  his 
Thucydides,  were  to  him  life  and  happiness,  and 
to  share  them  with  us  was  an  instinctive  desire, 
which  would  have  lost  its  enthusiasm  and  inspira- 
tion if  he  had  tried  to  base  it  on  arguments. 
But  this  thought  has  led  me  from  the  negative 


EDUCATION  55 

characteristics  of  my  teachers  to  a  positive  one,  — 
yes,  to  the  most  positive  one  which  I  felt  in  them, 
—  to  the  one  which  was  the  real  secret  of  our  Ger- 
man school :  my  teachers  were  enthusiastic  on  the 
subjects  they  taught,  as  only  those  who  know 
them  thoroughly  ever  can  be.  I  had  no  teacher 
who  hastily  learned  one  day  what  he  must  teach 
me  the  next ;  who  was  satisfied  with  second-hand 
knowledge,  which  is  quite  pretty  for  entertain- 
ment and  orientation,  but  which  is  so  intolerable 
and  inane  when  we  come  to  distribute  it  and  to 
give  it  to  others.  I  had  from  my  ninth  year  no 
teacher  in  any  subject  who  had  not  completed 
three  years'  work  in  the  graduate  school.  Even 
the  first  elements  of  Greek  and  mathematics,  of 
history  and  geography,  were  given  to  us  by  men 
who  had  reached  the  level  of  the  doctorate,  and 
who  had  the  perspective  of  their  own  fields. 
They  had  seen  their  work  with  the  eye  of  the 
scholar,  and  thus  even  the  most  elementary  mate- 
rial of  their  science  was  raised  to  the  height  of 
scholarly  interest.  Elements  taken  for  themselves 
alone  are  trivial  and  empty  everywhere,  and  to 
teach  them  is  an  intolerable  drudgery,  which  fills 
the  schoolroom  with  dullness  and  the  pupils  with 
aversion.  Elements  as  the  introductory  part  of 
a  scholarly  system  are  of  ever  new  and  fasci- 
nating interest,  more  promising  and  enjoyable 


56  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

than  any  complex  problems.  A  great  poet  once 
said  that  any  man  who  has  ever  really  loved  in 
his  youth  can  never  become  quite  unhappy  in  life. 
A  man  who  has  ever  really  taken  a  scholarly  view 
of  his  science  can  never  find  in  that  science  any- 
thing which  is  quite  uninteresting.  Such  en- 
thusiasm is  contagious.  We  boys  felt  that  our 
teachers  believed  with  the  fullness  of  their  hearts 
in  the  inner  value  of  the  subjects,  and  every 
new  bit  of  knowledge  was  thus  for  us  a  new 
revelation.  We  did  not  ask  whether  it  would 
bake  bread  for  us.  We  were  eager  for  it  on 
account  of  its  own  inner  richness  and  value ;  and 
this  happy  living  in  an  atmosphere  of  such  ideal 
belief  in  the  inner  worth  and  glory  of  literature 
and  history,  of  science  and  thought,  was  our  lib- 
eral education. 

I  know  it  would  be  wrong  to  explain  our  being 
three  years  ahead  of  a  New  England  boy  merely 
from  the  scholarly  preparation  of  our  teachers. 
A  second  factor,  which  is  hardly  less  important, 
stands  clear  before  my  mind,  too,  —  the  help  which 
the  school  found  in  our  homes.  I  do  not  mean 
that  we  were  helped  in  our  work,  but  the  teachers 
were  silently  helped  by  the  spirit  which  prevailed 
in  our  homes  with  regard  to  the  school  work. 
The  school  had  the  right  of  way;  our  parents 
reinforced  our  belief  in  the  work  and  our  respect 


EDUCATION  67 

for  the  teachers.  A  reprimand  in  the  school  was 
a  shadow  on  our  home  life ;  a  word  of  praise  in 
the  school  was  a  ray  of  sunshine  for  the  house- 
hold. The  excellent  schoolbooks,  the  wise  plans 
for  the  upbuilding  of  the  ten  years'  course,  the 
hygienic  care,  the  external  stimulations,  —  all,  of 
course,  helped  toward  the  results ;  and  yet  I  am 
convinced  that  their  effect  was  entirely  secondary 
compared  with  these  two  features,  —  the  scholarly 
enthusiasm  of  our  teachers  and  respect  for  the 
school  on  the  part  of  our  parents. 

No  man  can  jump  over  his  shadow.  I  can- 
not suddenly  leave  all  my  memories  and  experi- 
ences behind  me,  and  when  I  behold  the  onward 
rush  of  our  school  reformers,  I  cannot  forget 
my  past ;  I  may  admire  their  good  will,  but  I 
cannot  accept  their  bad  arguments.  I  do  not 
speak  here  as  a  psychologist ;  I  know  quite  well 
that  some  consider  the  psychologist  a  pedagogical 
expert,  who  brings  the  profoundest  information 
directly  from  his  laboratory  to  the  educational 
witness  stand.  No  such  power  has  come  to  me. 
I  do  not  know  whether  my  professional  brethren 
have  had  pleasanter  experiences,  but  I  have 
always  found  psychology  silent  as  a  sphinx,  when 
I  came  to  her  with  the  question  of  what  we  ought 
to  do  in  the  walks  of  practical  life.  When  I 
asked  her  about  the  true  and  the  false,  she  was 


58  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

most  loquacious ;  but  when  I  came  to  her  about 
the  good  and  the  bad,  seeking  advice  and  help, 
she  never  vouchsafed  me  a  word.  I  confess  that 
I  have,  therefore,  slowly  become  a  little  skeptical 
as  to  whether  she  is  really  more  communicative 
with  my  psychological  friends,  or  whether  they  do 
not  simply  take  her  perfect  silence  for  a  welcome 
affirmation  of  all  their  own  thoughts  and  wishes. 
I  thus  come  to  the  question  of  school  reform  with- 
out any  professional  authority ;  I  come  to  it  sim- 
ply with  the  warm  interest  of  a  man  who  has 
children  in  the  schools,  who  has  daily  contact  with 
students  just  out  of  school,  and  who  has  not  for- 
gotten his  own  school  time. 

in 

The  most  essential  feature  of  all  recent  school 
reforms  —  or,  with  a  less  question-begging  title, 
I  should  say  school  experiments —  has  been  the 
tendency  toward  elective  studies.  But  I  am  in 
doubt  whether  we  should  consider  it  really  as  one 
tendency  only ;  the  name  covers  two  very  different 
tendencies,  whose  practical  results  are  externally 
similar.  We  have  on  one  side  the  desire  to  adjust 
the  school  work  to  the  final  purposes  of  the  indi- 
vidual in  practical  lif e ;  which  means  beginning 
professional  preparation  in  that  period  which  up 
to  this  time  has  been  given  over  to  liberal  educa- 


EDUCATION  69 

tion.  We  have  on  the  other  side  the  desire  to 
adjust  the  school  work  to  the  innate  talents  and 
likings  of  the  individual,  -which  means  giving  in 
the  school  work  no  place  to  that  which  finds  inner 
resistance  in  the  pupil.  In  the  first  case  the 
university  method  filters  down  to  the  school ;  in 
the  second  case  the  kindergarten  method  creeps 
up  to  the  school.  In  the  one  case  the  liberal 
education  of  the  school  is  replaced  by  profes- 
sional education ;  in  the  other  case  the  liberal 
education  is  replaced  by  liberal  play.  If  one 
of  the  two  tendencies  were  working  alone,  its 
imminent  danger  would  be  felt  at  once;  but  as 
they  seem  to  cooperate,  the  one  working  from  the 
bottom  and  the  other  from  the  top,  each  hides 
for  the  moment  the  defects  of  the  other.  And 
yet  the  coincidence  is  almost  accidental  and  en- 
tirely superficial ;  both  desire  to  make  concessions 
to  individual  differences.  Peter  and  Paul  ought 
not  to  have  the  same  school  education  we  are 
told;  but  the  essential  question  of  what,  after 
all,  Peter  ought  to  learn  in  school  must  be 
answered  very  differently,  according  as  we  look 
at  it  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  kindergarten 
or  from  the  point  of  view  of  professional  life ;  as 
there  is  indeed  a  difference  whether  I  ask  what 
may  best  suit  the  taste  and  liking  of  Peter,  the 
darling,  or  whether  I  ask  what  Peter,  the  man,  will 


60  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

need  for  the  battle  of  life,  in  which  nobody  asks 
what  he  likes,  but  where  the  question  is  how  he  is 
liked,  and  how  he  suits  the  tastes  of  his  neigh- 
bors. The  one  method  treats  the  boy  as  a  child, 
and  the  other  treats  the  boy  as  a  man.  Nothing 
is  common  to  them,  after  all,  except  the  result 
that  boyhood  loses  its  opportunity  for  a  liberal 
education,  which  ought  to  borrow  from  the  kin- 
dergarten merely  its  remoteness  from  practical 
professional  life,  and  from  professional  work 
merely  its  seriousness. 

Neither  tendency  stands  alone  in  our  social  life. 
In  short,  the  one  fits  the  mercenary  spirit  of  our 
time,  and  the  other  fits  its  spirit  of  selfish  enjoy- 
ment. From  the  standpoint  of  social  philosophy, 
mercenary  utilitarianism  and  selfish  materialism 
belong  together;  everywhere  do  they  grow  to- 
gether, and  everywhere  do  they  fight  together 
against  the  spirit  of  idealism.  But  while  they 
fight  together,  they  march  to  the  battlefield  on 
very  different  roads.  Practical  life  demands 
division  of  labor,  and,  therefore,  the  specializa- 
tion of  the  individual.  The  argument  which 
urges  the  earliest  possible  beginning  of  this  spe- 
cialization is  thus  a  natural  one,  and  the  convic- 
tion that  the  struggle  for  existence  must  become 
more  difficult  with  the  growing  complexity  of 
modern  life  may  encourage  the  view  that  the 


EDUCATION  61 

remedy  lies  in  professional  training  at  the  expense 
of  all  other  education.  The  lawyer  and  the  phy- 
sician need  so  many  facts  for  the  efficiency  of 
their  work  that  it  seems  a  waste  of  energy  to  bur- 
den the  future  lawyer  with  the  knowledge  of  nat- 
ural sciences,  and  the  future  physician  with  the 
knowledge  of  history.  If  this  is  true,  however, 
we  ought  to  begin  still  earlier :  on  the  first  day  in 
the  kindergarten,  I  should  show  my  little  lawyer 
two  cakes,  and  explain  to  him  that  one  is  his  cake, 
and  the  other  is  not,  —  social  information  which 
does  not  lie  in  the  line  of  my  little  naturalist ; 
and  I  should  tell  the  other  little  fellow  that  one 
cake  has  plums  and  the  other  has  not,  —  scientific 
instruction  which  is  without  value  for  the  future 
lawyer.  But  even  if  I  shape  my  school  according 
to  such  schemes,  do  I  really  reach,  after  all,  the 
goal  at  which  I  am  aiming?  Does  not  the  utili- 
tarian spirit  deceive  itself  ?  And  even  if  we  do 
not  acknowledge  any  other  standpoint  than  the 
mercenary  one,  is  not  the  calculation  very  super- 
ficial ?  The  laborer  in  the  mill  may  be  put,  some- 
times, by  the  cruelty  of  the  age  of  steam,  in  a 
place  where  his  personality  as  a  whole  is  crippled, 
and  only  one  small  function  is  in  use ;  but  the 
higher  the  profession,  the  more  nearly  is  the 
whole  man  working  in  every  act,  and  the  more, 
therefore,  is  a  broad  general  education  necessary 


62  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

to  practical  efficiency.  The  biologists  tell  us  that 
the  play  of  animals  is  a  biologically  necessary  pre- 
paration for  the  struggle  of  existence,  and  that  in 
a  parallel  way,  the  playing  of  the  child  is  the  wise 
scheme  of  nature  to  prepare  man  in  some  respect 
for  the  struggles  of  life.  How  infinitely  more 
necessary  for  the  battles  of  manhood,  though 
seemingly  of  no  more  practical  use  than  such  play, 
is  the  well-planned  liberal  education ! 

The  higher  the  level  on  which  the  professional 
specializing  begins,  the  more  effective  it  is.  I 
have  said  that  we  German  boys  did  not  think  of 
any  specialization  and  individual  variation  before 
we  reached  a  level  corresponding  to  the  college 
graduation  here.  In  this  country,  the  college  must 
still  go  on  for  a  while  playing  the  double  role  of 
the  place  for  the  general  education  of  the  one, 
and  the  workshop  for  the  professional  training  of 
the  other ;  but  at  least  the  high  school  ought  to 
be  faithful  to  its  only  goal  of  general  education 
without  professional  anticipations.  Moreover,  we 
are  not  only  professional  wage-earners ;  we  live 
for  our  friends  and  our  nation;  we  face  social 
and  political,  moral  and  religious  problems ;  we 
are  in  contact  with  nature  and  science,  with  art 
and  literature  ;  we  shape  our  town  and  our  time  ; 
and  the  experience  is  common  to  every  one,  to 
the  banker  and  the  manufacturer,  to  the  minister 


EDUCATION  63 

and  the  teacher,  to  the  lawyer  and  the  physician. 
The  technique  of  our  profession,  then,  appears 
only  as  a  small  variation  of  the  large  background 
of  work  in  which  we  all  share ;  and  if  the  educa- 
tion must  be  adapted  to  our  later  life,  all  these 
problems  demand  a  uniform  education  for  the 
members  of  the  same  social  community.  The 
division  of  labor  lies  on  the  outside.  We  are 
specialists  in  our  handiwork,  but  our  heart  work 
is  uniform,  and  the  demand  for  individualized 
education  emphasizes  the  small  differences  in  our 
tasks,  and  ignores  the  great  similarities. 

And  after  all,  who  is  able  to  say  what  a  boy  of 
twelve  years  will  need  for  his  special  life  work  ? 
It  is  easily  said  in  a  school  programme  that  the 
course  will  be  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  partic- 
ular pupil  with  respect  to  his  later  life,  but  it 
would  be  harder  to  say  how  we  are  to  find  out 
what  the  boy  does  need ;  and  even  if  we  know  it, 
the  straight  line  to  the  goal  is  not  always  the 
shortest  way. 

The  one  need  of  my  individual  fate,  compared 
with  that  of  other  German  boys,  is  the  English 
language,  and  the  one  great  blank  in  the  pre- 
scribed programme  of  our  gymnasium  was  the 
total  absence  of  instruction  in  English.  Yet  I 
have  such  unlimited  confidence  in  the  wisdom  of 
my  teachers  that  I  cannot  help  thinking  they  knew 


64  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

quite  well  how  my  case  stood.  I  can  imagine  that 
when  I  was  twelve  years  old,  the  principal  of  the 
school  said  in  a  faculty  meeting :  "  This  boy  will 
need  the  English  language  later,  to  philosophize 
on  the  other  side  of  the  ocean,  and  he  ought  to 
begin  now  to  learn  it,  in  time  for  his  professional 
work ;  to  get  the  free  time  for  it  we  must  elimi- 
nate the  Greek  from  his  course."  But  then  my 
dear  little  gray-haired  Greek  teacher  must  have 
arisen  and  have  said  with  indignation  :  "  No,  sir : 
the  bit  of  English  which  is  necessary  to  lecture  to 
students,  and  to  address  teachers'  meetings,  and 
to  write  for  the  Atlantic  Monthly  can  be  learned 
at  any  time,  but  Greek  he  will  never  learn  if  he 
does  not  learn  it  now  ;  and  if  he  does  not  have  it, 
he  will  never  get  that  inspiration  which  may  make 
his  scholarly  work  worth  calling  him  over  the 
ocean.  Only  if  he  studies  Greek  will  they  call 
him  to  use  English ;  but  if  he  learns  only  Eng- 
lish, he  never  will  have  the  chance  to  use  it." 
That  settled  my  case,  and  so  came  about  the  curi- 
ous chance  that  I  accepted  the  professorship  at 
Harvard  without  having  spoken  a  single  word  of 
English  in  my  life ;  and  I  still  thank  my  old 
Greek  teacher,  who  is  long  since  dead,  for  his 
decision.  Yes,  as  I  think  it  over,  I  am  inclined 
to  believe  that  it  is  just  so  in  most  cases  :  if  we 
prepare  for  the  one  thing,  we  shall  have  a  chance 


EDUCATION  65 

for  the  other ;  but  if  we  wisely  prepare  at  once 
for  the  other,  our  chance  for  it  will  never  come. 
Life  is,  after  all,  not  so  easily  manufactured  as  the 
advertising  circular  of  a  private  boarding  school, 
in  which  everything  is  exactly  adapted  to  the 
individual  needs. 

This  elective  adjustment  of  the  studies  to  the 
later  professional  work  and  business  of  the  man 
plays  a  large  part  in  the  theoretical  discussions, 
and  there  acts  effectively  on  the  crowd  through 
the  promise  of  professional  success ;  but  it  strikes 
me  that  this  utilitarian  appeal  works,  on  the  whole, 
for  the  interest  of  that  other  kind  of  electivism 
which  promises  ease  through  the  adjustment  of 
the  school  to  the  personal  inclinations.  It  seems 
to  me  that,  in  the  practical  walks  of  education, 
this  is  by  far  the  stronger  impulse  to  election. 
Even  in  the  college,  where  most  boys  have  at 
least  a  dim  idea  of  what  they  want  to  do  in  life, 
the  election  with  reference  to  the  later  occupa- 
tion usually  plays  a  secondary  role ;  liking  is  the 
great  ruler.  The  university  method  were  power- 
less in  the  school  reform,  did  it  not  act  as  agent  for 
the  kindergarten  method.  This  leading  plea  for 
electives  takes  the  following  form :  All  instruction 
must  be  interesting ;  if  the  pupil's  interest  is  not 
in  it,  the  whole  instruction  is  dead  matter,  useless 
vexation.  Everything  which  appeals  to  the  nat- 


66  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

ural  tastes  and  instincts  of  the  child  is  interest- 
ing. Instruction,  therefore,  must  be  adjusted  to 
the  natural  instincts  and  tastes. 

The  logical  fallacy  of  this  ought  to  be  evident. 
All  instruction  which  is  good  must  be  interest- 
ing ;  but  does  it  follow  therefrom  that  all  in- 
struction which  is  interesting  must  also  be  good  ? 
Is  it  not  possible  that  there  are  kinds  of  interest 
which  are  utterly  bad  and  destructive  ?  All  that 
appeals  to  the  natural  tastes  and  instincts  is  inter- 
esting ;  does  it  follow  that  nothing  is  interesting 
which  goes  beyond  the  natural  instincts  ?  Is  it 
not  savage  life  to  follow  merely  the  instincts 
and  natural  desires?  Is  not  all  the  meaning  of 
education  just  to  discriminate  between  good  and 
bad  desires  ?  to  suppress  the  lower  instincts,  and 
to  reinf orce  the  higher ;  above  all,  to  awake  new 
desires,  to  build  up  new  interests,  to  create  new 
instincts  ?  If  civilization,  with  its  instruments  of 
home  and  school  education,  could  not  overcome 
our  natural  tastes  and  instinctive  desires,  we 
should  remain  forever  children  whose  attention  is 
captured  by  everything  that  excites  and  shines. 
The  street  tune  would  expel  the  symphony,  the 
prize  fight  would -overcome  the  drama,  the  yellow 
press  and  the  dime  novel  would  be  our  literature ; 
our  social  life  would  be  vulgar,  our  public  life 
hysterical,  and  our  intellectual  life  a  mixture  of 


EDUCATION  67 

cheap  gossip  and  sensational  news  with  practical 
schemes  for  comfort  and  advertisement.  Yes, 
instruction  must  be  full  of  interest ;  but  whether 
instruction  is  good  or  bad,  is  in  the  spirit  of  civi- 
lization or  against  it,  depends  upon  the  question 
what  sort  of  interest  is  in  the  play,  —  that  which 
vulgarizes,  or  that  which  refines  ;  that  which  the 
street  boy  brings  from  the  slums  to  the  school,  or 
that  which  the  teacher  brings  from  the  graduate 
school  to  the  country  classroom.  The  more  inter- 
nal the  motives  which  capture  the  attention,  the 
higher  the  mental  functions  to  which  we  appeal, 
the  more  we  are  really  educators.  The  platform 
is  no  variety  show ;  the  boys  must  be  inspired,  but 
not  amused. 

I  am  not  afraid  to  push  my  heresy  even  to 
the  point  of  seeing  with  serious  doubts  the  rap- 
idly growing  tendency  toward  the  demonstrative 
method  in  scientific  instruction.  No  doubt  all 
such  illustrations  strongly  appeal  to  common 
sense ;  our  happy  children,  the  public  thinks,  see 
and  touch  everything,  where  we  had  only  words 
on  words.  But  the  words  appealed  to  a  higher 
power  than  the  demonstrations,  —  those  spoke  to 
the  understanding,  these  to  the  perception  ;  those 
gave  us  the  laws,  these  the  accidental  realiz- 
ations. No  demonstration,  no  experiment,  can 
really  show  us  the  totality  of  a  law ;  it  shows  us 


68  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

always  only  one  special  case,  which  as  such  is 
quite  unimportant.  Its  importance  lies  in  the 
necessity  which  can  be  expressed  merely  by  words, 
and  never  by  apparatus.  The  deeper  meaning  of 
naturalistic  instruction  is  by  far  more  fully  pre- 
sent in  the  book  than  in  the  instrument ;  and 
while  it  is  easier  to  teach  and  to  learn  natural 
science  when  it  appeals  to  the  eye  rather  than  to 
the  reason,  I  doubt  whether  it  has,  from  a  higher 
standpoint,  the  same  educational  value,  just  as  I 
doubt  whether  the  doll  with  a  silk  dress  and  a 
phonograph  in  the  chest  has  the  same  value  for 
the  development  of  the  child  at  play  that  the  sim- 
ple little  wooden  doll  has.  The  question  of  scien- 
tific instruction  is,  of  course,  far  too  complex  to 
be  analyzed  here  ;  the  method  of  demonstrations 
has  some  good  features ;  and  above  all,  the  other 
kind  of  instruction,  to  be  valuable  at  all,  needs 
much  better  teachers  than  those  whom  the  schools 
have  at  their  disposal.  I  wish  only  to  point  out 
that  even  here,  where  the  popular  agreement  is 
unanimous,  very  serious  hesitation  is  possible. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  damage  to  the  subject- 
matter  of  instruction,  which  results  from  the  lim- 
itation of  the  work  to  personal  taste ;  but  there 
is  also  a  formal  side  of  education,  which  is  to  me 
more  important.  A  child  who  has  himself  the 
right  of  choice,  or  who  sees  that  parents  and 


EDUCATION  69 

teachers  select  the  courses  according  to  his  tastes 
and  inclinations,  may  learn  a  thousand  pretty 
things,  but  never  the  one  which  is  the  greatest  of 
all :  to  do  his  duty.  He  who  is  allowed  always  to 
follow  the  paths  of  least  resistance  never  develops 
the  power  to  overcome  resistance  ;  he  remains  ut- 
terly unprepared  for  life.  To  do  what  we  like  to 
do,  —  that  needs  no  pedagogical  encouragement : 
water  always  runs  downhill.  Our  whole  public 
and  social  life  shows  the  working  of  this  impulse, 
and  our  institutions  outbid  one  another  in  cater- 
ing to  the  taste  of  the  public.  The  school  alone 
has  the  power  to  develop  the  opposite  tendency, 
to  encourage  and  train  the  belief  in  duties  and 
obligations,  to  inspire  devotion  to  better  things 
than  those  to  which  we  are  drawn  by  our  lower 
instincts.  Yes,  water  runs  downhill  all  the  time ; 
and  yet  all  the  earth  were  sterile  and  dead  if  water 
could  not  ascend  again  to  the  clouds,  and  supply 
rain  to  the  field  which  brings  us  the  harvest.  We 
see  only  the  streams  going  down  to  the  ocean  ;  we 
do  not  see  how  the  ocean  sends  up  the  waters  to 
bless  our  fields.  Just  so  do  we  see  in  the  streams 
of  life  the  human  emotions  following  the  impulses 
down  to  selfishness  and  pleasure  and  enjoyment, 
but  we  do  not  see  how  the  human  emotions  ascend 
again  to  the  ideals, — ascend  in  feelings  of  duty  and 
enthusiasm ;  and  yet  without  this  upward  move- 


70  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

ment  our  fields  were  dry,  our  harvest  lost.  That 
invisible  work  is  the  sacred  mission  of  the  school ; 
it  is  the  school  that  must  raise  man's  mind  from 
his  likings  to  his  belief  in  duties,  from  his  instincts 
to  his  ideals,  that  art  and  science,  national  honor 
and  morality,  friendship  and  religion,  may  spring 
from  the  ground  and  blossom. 

IV 

But  I  go  further :  are  elective  studies  really 
elected  at  all  ?  I  mean,  do  they  really  represent 
the  deeper  desires  and  demands  of  the  individual, 
or  do  they  not  simply  express  the  cumulation  of  a 
hundred  chance  influences  ?  I  have  intentionally 
lingered  on  the  story  of  my  shifting  interests  in 
my  boyhood ;  it  is  more  or  less  the  story  of  every 
halfway-intelligent  boy  or  girl.  A  little  bit  of 
talent,  a  petty  caprice  favored  by  accident,  a  con- 
tagious craze  or  fad,  a  chance  demand  for  some- 
thing of  which  scarcely  the  outside  is  known,  — 
all  these  whirr  and  buzz  in  every  boyhood ;  but 
to  follow  such  superficial  moods  would  mean  the 
dissolution  of  all  organized  life,  and  education 
would  be  an  empty  word.  Election  which  is 
more  than  a  chance  grasping  presupposes  first  of 
all  acquaintance  with  the  object  of  our  choice. 
Even  in  the  college  two  thirds  of  the  elections  are 
haphazard,  controlled  by  accidental  motives  ;  elec- 


EDUCATION  71 

tion  of  courses  demands  a  wide  view  and  broad 
knowledge  of  the  whole  field.  The  lower  the 
level  on  which  the  choice  is  made,  the  more  exter- 
nal and  misleading  are  the  motives  which  direct 
it.  A  helter-skelter  chase  of  the  unknown  is  no 
election.  If  a  man  who  does  not  know  French 
goes  into  a  restaurant  where  the  bill  of  fare  is 
given  in  the  French  language,  and  points  to  one 
line  and  to  another,  not  knowing  whether  his 
order  is  fish  or  roast  or  pudding,  the  waiter  will 
bring  him  a  meal,  but  we  cannot  say  that  he  has 
"  elected  his  courses." 

From  whatever  standpoint  I  view  it,  the  ten- 
dency to  base  the  school  on  elective  studies  seems 
to  me  a  mistake,  —  a  mistake  for  which,  of  course, 
not  a  special  school,  but  the  social  consciousness 
is  to  be  blamed.  I  cannot  think  much  better  of 
that  second  tendency  of  which  I  spoke,  —  the 
tendency  to  improve  the  schools  by  a  pedagogic- 
psychological  preparation  of  the  teachers.  I  said 
that,  just  as  I  had  no  right  of  election  over  my 
courses,  my  teachers  did  not  base  my  education  on 
theories  of  pedagogy  and  psychology.  I  do  not 
think  that  they  would  have  been  better  teachers 
with  such  wisdom  than  without  it.  I  doubt,  even, 
whether  it  would  not  have  changed  things  for  the 
worse.  I  do  not  believe  in  lyrics  which  are  writ- 
ten after  the  prescriptions  of  aesthetics ;  I  have 


72  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

the  fullest  respect  for  the  scholar  in  poetical  the- 
ory, but  he  ought  not  to  make  the  poets  believe 
that  they  need  his  advice  before  they  dare  to  sing. 
Psychology  is  a  wonderful  science,  and  pedagogy, 
as  soon  as  we  shall  have  it,  may  be  a  wonderful 
science,  too,  and  very  important  for  school  organ- 
izers, for  superintendents  and  city  officials,  but 
the  individual  teacher  has  little  practical  use  for 
it.  I  have  discussed  this  point  so  often  before 
the  public  that  I  am  unwilling  to  repeat  my  argu- 
ments here.  I  have  again  and  again  shown  that 
in  the  practical  contact  of  the  schoolroom  the 
teacher  can  never  gain  that  kind  of  knowledge 
of  the  child  which  would  enable  him  to  get  the 
right  basis  for  psychological  calculation,  and  that 
psychology  itself  is  unable  to  do  justice  to  the 
demands  of  the  individual  case.  I  have  tried 
to  show  how  the  conscious  occupation  with  peda- 
gogical rules  interferes  with  instinctive  views  of 
right  pedagogical  means ;  and,  above  all,  how 
the  analytic  tendency  of  the  psychological  and 
pedagogical  attitude  is  diametrically  opposite  to 
that  practical  attitude,  full  of  tact  and  sympathy, 
which  we  must  demand  of  the  real  teacher ;  and 
that  the  training  in  the  one  attitude  inhibits  free- 
dom in  the  other.  And  when  I  see  that  teachers 
sometimes  interpret  my  warning  as  if  I  wished 
merely  to  say,  "  I,  as  a  psychologist,  dislike  to 


EDUCATION  73 

have  any  one  approach  the  science  with  the  purely 
practical  question  whether  it  bakes  bread,  instead 
of  with  a  purely  theoretical  interest/'  I  must  ob- 
ject to  that  interpretation.  I  did  not  wish  merely 
to  say  that  the  bread  question  would  better  be  de- 
layed ;  no,  the  teacher  ought  to  know  from  the 
beginning  that  if  he  takes  the  bread  which  psy- 
chology bakes,  indigestion  must  follow. 

Yet  I  do  not  mean  to  be  narrow.  I  do  not 
think  that  if  teachers  go  through  psychological 
and  pedagogical  studies  they  will  really  suffer 
very  much ;  they  will  do  with  them  what  they  do 
with  most  studies,  —  they  will  forget  them.  And 
if  they  forget  them,  what  harm,  then,  —  why  all 
this  fighting  against  it,  as  if  a  danger  were  in 
question  ?  This  brings  me,  finally,  to  my  last  but 
chief  point :  I  think,  indeed,  that  great  dangers 
do  exist,  and  that  the  psycho-pedagogical  move- 
ment does  serious  damage,  not  so  much  because 
it  affects  the  teacher,  but  because  it,  together  with 
the  enthusiasm  for  elective  studies,  turns  the  at- 
tention of  the  public  from  the  only  essential  and 
important  point,  upon  which,  I  feel  deeply  con- 
vinced, the  true  reform  of  our  schools  is  depen- 
dent,—  the  better  instruction  of  our  teachers. 
That  was  the  secret,  I  said,  in  our  German 
schools ;  the  most  elementary  teaching  was  given 
by  men  who  were  experts  in  their  field,  who  had 


74  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

the  perspective  of  it,  and  whose  scholarly  interest 
filled  them  with  an  enthusiasm  that  inspired  the 
class.  To  bring  that  condition  about  must  be 
the  aim  of  every  friend  of  American  school  life. 
That  is  the  one  great  reform  which  is  needed,  and 
till  this  burning  need  is  removed  it  is  useless  to 
institute  unimportant  changes.  These  little  pseu- 
do-reforms become,  indeed,  a  wrong,  if  they  make 
the  public  forget  that  true  help  and  true  reform 
are  demanded.  If  a  child  is  crying  because  it  is 
ill,  we  may  keep  it  quiet  for  a  while  by  a  piece  of 
candy,  but  we  do  not  make  it  well ;  and  it  is  a 
wrong  to  quiet  it,  if  its  silence  makes  us  omit  to 
call  the  physician  to  cure  it.  The  elective  studies 
and  the  pedagogical  courses  are  such  sweetmeats 
for  education.  The  schools  were  bad,  and  the 
public  was  dissatisfied ;  now  the  elective  studies 
relieve  the  discomfort  of  the  children,  in  the  place 
of  the  old  vexation  they  have  a  good  time,  and 
the  parents  are  glad  that  the  drudgery  is  over. 
And  when,  nevertheless,  a  complaint  arises,  and 
the  parents  discover  that  the  children  do  not  learn 
anything  and  that  they  become  disrespectful,  then 
there  comes  the  chance  for  the  man  with  the  psy- 
chological —  and  pedagogical  —  training  ;  he  is 
not  a  better  teacher,  but  he  can  talk  about  the 
purposes  of  the  new  education  till  all  is  covered 
by  beautiful  words;  and  thus  parents  and  chil- 


EDUCATION  75 

dren  are  happily  satisfied  for  a  while,  till  the  time 
comes  when  the  nation  has  to  pay  for  its  neglect 
in  failing  really  to  cure  the  sick  child.  Just  as  it 
has  been  said  that  war  needs  three  things,  money, 
money,  and  again  money,  so  it  can  be  said  with 
much  greater  truth  that  education  needs,  not  forces 
and  buildings,  not  pedagogy  and  demonstrations, 
but  only  men,  men,  and  again  men,  —  without  for- 
bidding that  some,  not  too  many  of  them,  shall 
be  women. 

The  right  kind  of  men  is  what  the  schools 
need ;  they  have  the  wrong  kind.  They  need 
teachers  whose  interest  in  the  subject  would  banish 
all  drudgery,  and  they  have  teachers  whose  pitiable 
unpreparedness  makes  the  class  work  either  so 
superficial  that  the  pupils  do  not  learn  anything, 
or,  if  it  is  taken  seriously,  so  dry  and  empty  that 
it  is  a  vexation  for  children  and  teachers  alike. 
To  produce  anything  equivalent  to  the  teaching 
staff  from  whose  guidance  I  benefited  in  my  boy- 
hood, no  one  ought  to  be  allowed  to  teach  in  a 
grammar  school  who  has  not  passed  through  a 
college  or  a  good  normal  school ;  no  one  ought  to 
teach  in  a  high  school  who  has  not  worked,  after 
his  college  course,  at  least  two  years  in  the  grad- 
uate school  of  a  good  university ;  no  one  ought 
to  teach  in  a  college  who  has  not  taken  his  doc- 
tor's degree  in  one  of  the  best  universities ;  and 


76  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

no  one  ought  to  teach  in  a  graduate  school  who 
has  not  shown  his  mastery  of  method  by  powerful 
scientific  publications.  We  have  instead  a  misery 
which  can  be  characterized  by  one  statistical  fact : 
only  two  per  cent  of  the  schoolteachers  possess 
any  degree  whatever.  If  the  majority  of  college 
teachers  are  hardly  prepared  to  teach  in  a  second- 
ary school,  if  the  majority  of  high-school  teachers 
are  hardly  fit  to  teach  in  a  primary  school,  and 
if  the  majority  of  primary-school  teachers  are 
just  enough  educated  to  fill  a  salesgirl's  place  in 
a  millinery  store,  then  every  other  reform  is  self- 
deceit. 

I  do  not  feel  at  all  surprised  that  many  of  my 
brethren  who  are  seriously  interested  in  the  pro- 
gress of  education  rush  forward  in  the  wrong 
direction.  They  have  been  brought  up  under 
the  prescribed  system,  with  teachers  who  did  not 
know  pedagogy,  and  they  feel  instinctively  that 
the  schools  are  bad  and  need  reform.  It  is  only 
natural  for  them  to  think  that  the  prescriptive 
system  is  guilty,  and  that  pedagogy  can  help  us ; 
they  are  so  filled  with  aversion  to  the  old-fash- 
ioned school  that  they  think  only  of  the  matter 
which  they  were  taught  and  the  method  after  which 
they  were  taught ;  but  as  they  have  no  standard 
of  comparison  in  their  own  experience,  they  never 
imagine  that  it  may  have  been  the  men  alone,  the 


EDUCATION  77 

teachers,  who  were  responsible  for  the  failures. 
These  friends  have  never  experienced  what  my 
classmates  and  I  enjoyed,  —  prescribed  courses 
with  expert  teachers.  They  do  not  and  cannot 
imagine  the  revolution  which  comes  into  the 
schoolroom  as  soon  as  a  teacher  stands  on  the 
platform  who  has  the  inspiring  enthusiasm  for  his 
science  which  springs  from  a  profound  scholarly 
knowledge.  No  pedagogical  technique  can  be 
substituted  for  this  only  real  preparation  of  the 
teacher ;  and  I  fear  that  pedagogy  must  become 
a  hindrance  to  educational  progress,  if  it  ever 
causes  the  principal  or  the  school  board  to  prefer 
the  teacher  who  has  learned  pedagogy  to  the 
teacher  who  has  learned  the  subject  he  is  going 
to  teach. 

My  German  memories,  however,  not  only  arouse 
in  me  a  pessimism  with  regard  to  those  pseudo- 
reforms  ;  they  give  me  also  most  optimistic  views 
with  regard  to  a  point  which  may  be  raised  as  an 
objection  to  my  views.  The  teaching  staff  is  bad 
indeed,  it  has  often  been  said,  but  how  can  we 
hope  for  an  improvement  ?  The  boys  leave  the 
high  school  at  eighteen  years  of  age,  the  college 
at  twenty-two ;  how  can  we  hope  that  an  average 
high-school  teacher  will  devote  a  still  larger  part 
of  his  life  to  the  preparation  for  his  professional 
work,  and  will  spend  two  or  three  years  more  in 


78  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

a  graduate  school  before  lie  begins  to  earn  his 
living?  This  argument  is  utterly  wrong,  as  it 
neglects  the  interrelation  of  the  different  factors. 
If  we  had  thoroughly  prepared  teachers,  the  aims 
of  the  school  would  be  reached  here  just  as 
quickly  as  in  Germany,  where,  as  I  have  shown, 
the  level  of  American  high-school  graduation  is 
attained  at  fifteen  years,  and  the  level  of  average 
American  college  graduation  at  nineteen.  Time 
which,  with  the  teachers  of  to-day,  is  hardly  suffi- 
cient to  bring  a  man  through  a  good  high  school 
would  then  be  enough  to  give  him  a  college  edu- 
cation, and  the  time  which  to-day  is  necessary  to 
pull  him  through  college  should  be  enough  to  give 
him  three  years  in  the  graduate  school.  I  was 
twenty-two  when  I  took  my  doctor's  degree  in 
Leipzig,  and  so  were  most  of  my  friends.  The 
change  cannot  come  suddenly;  but  as  soon  as 
the  public  recognizes  in  what  direction  true  re- 
form of  education  must  lie,  it  can  be  brought 
about  by  a  slow,  persistent  pushing  along  that 
line.  If  the  schools  insist  more  and  more  on 
the  solid  scholarship  of  the  teachers,  the  time  in 
which  the  ends  of  the  school  are  reached  will  be- 
come shorter  and  shorter  :  this  will  give  more  and 
more  room  for  the  continuation  of  study  on  the 
part  of  the  future  teachers,  and  thus  we  should 
enter  upon  a  beneficial  revolution  which  would 


EDUCATION  79 

in  a  short  time  supply  the  whole  country  with  effi- 
cient teachers.  If  we  look  at  the  situation  from 
this  point  of  view,  we  can  hardly  doubt  that  even 
those  who  have  only  the  utilitarian  interest  in 
mind,  —  yes,  even  those  who  think  of  the  mer- 
cenary aspect  only,  —  that  even  those  must  pre- 
fer this  true  reform  to  the  efforts  of  the  "  new 
education  "  men  who  operate  with  pedagogy  and 
elective  studies.  Those  three  years  which  every 
American  boy  loses  through  the  bad  preparation 
of  his  teachers  represent  a  loss  for  the  practical 
achievement  in  later  life  which  cannot  be  compen- 
sated for  by  an  early  beginning  of  professional 
training  through  electives.  It  is  a  loss  for  the 
man,  and  an  incomparable  loss  for  the  nation. 

I  merely  indicated  one  other  feature  of  our 
German  education  when  I  disclosed  the  secret  of 
its  efficiency.  I  said  that  our  parents  reinforced 
in  us  respect  for  the  school,  and  that  the  home 
atmosphere  was  filled  with  belief  in  the  duties  of 
school  life.  Our  parents  did  not  need  mothers' 
clubs  and  committees  for  that,  and  there  was  little 
discussion  about  what  children  need  in  abstracto  ; 
but  they  made  their  children  feel  that  the  home 
and  the  school  were  working  in  alliance.  We 
boys  took  all  that  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  what 
it  meant  I  never  quite  understood  before  I  crossed 
the  ocean.  I  feel  inclined  to  say  that  what  our 


80  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

schoolchildren  need  is  not  only  good  teachers,  but 
also  good  parents.  They  need  fathers  who  feel 
the  responsibility  to  be  the  ultimate  moral  guides 
of  the  youth  and  who  do  not  undermine  by  care- 
lessness the  patient  work  of  the  teacher.  They 
need  mothers  who  through  all  their  love  and  in- 
dulgence steadily  insist  on  the  seriousness  of  duties 
and  who  are  not  misled  by  the  superficial  theories 
of  half-educated  educators  to  believe  that  persua- 
sion only  and  never  command  has  to  enter  the 
nursery.  They  need  parents  who  understand 
what  they  are  doing  when  they  keep  their  chil- 
dren at  home  from  school  on  rainy  days  or  let 
them  omit  the  school  work  when  guests  are  com- 
ing, when  they  allow  their  youngsters  to  be  idle 
through  the  whole  long  vacations,  when  they  urge 
the  school  to  reduce  and  reduce  the  daily  home 
work,  and  when  they  enjoy  the  jokes  of  the  child 
on  the  teacher.  It  is  a  noble  thing  that  Ameri- 
cans put  millions  into  new  schoolhouses,  but  to 
build  up  the  education  in  the  classroom  without 
a  foundation  in  the  serious  responsible  aid  of  the 
parents,  is  not  better  than  to  build  those  magnifi- 
cent buildings  of  brick  and  stone  on  shifting  sand. 


Ill 

SCHOLARSHIP 
I 

THE  idea  of  continental  Europe  in  regard  to 
the  productive  scholars  of  the  New  World  can  be 
as  easily  as  briefly  stated :  there  is  none.  A  widely 
read  German  history  of  civilization  says  this  about 
American  scholarship  :  "  American  universities 
are  hardly  more  than  ordinary  schools  in  Germany. 
It  is  true,  they  receive  large  sums  of  money  from 
rich  men ;  but  they  cannot  attain  to  anything, 
because  the  institutions  either  remain  under  the 
control  of  the  church,  or  the  professors  are  ap- 
pointed on  account  of  their  political  or  personal 
connections,  not  on  account  of  their  knowledge. 
The  professors  therefore  have,  naturally,  more 
interest  in  money-making  than  in  the  advance- 
ment of  science.  Not  a  single  one  of  these  insti- 
tutions has  reached  a  scientific  position."  And 
if  this  expresses  the  opinion  of  the  public  at  large, 
it  must  be  admitted  that  the  scholars  are  seldom 
much  better  informed.  They  see  hundreds  of 
American  students  migrating  to  Germany  every 
year,  and  feel  sure  that  they  would  not  come  in 


82  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

such  streams  if  America  had  anything  of  com- 
parable value  to  offer.  American  publications 
cross  the  ocean  in  a  ridiculously  small  number ; 
in  the  world  of  letters  no  Columbus  has  yet  dis- 
covered the  other  side  of  the  globe. 

Is  it  necessary  to  defend  myself  against  the 
suspicion  that  I  share  this  European  prejudice  ?  I 
have  my  witnesses  in  print.  Since  I  resigned  my 
German  professorship  to  enter  Harvard  Univer- 
sity, I  have  heartily  welcomed  every  opportunity 
to  write  for  German  readers  about  my  delightful 
surprises  in  the  academic  world  here,  and  about 
the  contrast  between  the  facts  here  and  the  fables 
current  over  there.  Last  summer  I  had  a  glorious 
opportunity.  A  well-known  naturalist  of  Swit- 
zerland, whose  opinions  are  often  heard  in  Ger- 
man magazines,  came  here  for  scientific  purposes, 
and  spent  his  vacation  in  various  places.  When 
he  returned,  he  gathered  his  impressions  in  an 
essay  published  in  the  most  widely  read  review, 
and  condensed  his  opinions  on  American  univer- 
sities as  foUows:  "The  American  universities 
are  of  unequal  value ;  some  are  simply  humbug. 
They  are  all  typically  American,  illustrating  in 
every  respect  the  American  spirit :  they  have 
an  essentially  practical  purpose.  The  American 
wishes  to  see  quick  returns  in  facts  and  suc- 
cesses; he  has  scarcely  ever  any  comprehension 


SCHOLARSHIP  83 

of  theory  and  real  science.  He  has  not  yet  had 
time  to  understand  that  scholarly  truth  is  like  a 
beautiful  woman,  who  should  be  loved  and  hon- 
ored for  her  own  sake,  while  it  is  a  degradation 
to  value  her  only  for  her  practical  services :  a 
Yankee  brain  of  to-day  cannot  grasp  that,"  — 
and  so  on.  I  published  at  once  in  the  same  mag- 
azine an  extended  reply.  I  demonstrated  therein 
how  easily  the  foreigner  is  misled  by  the  use  of 
the  word  "  university  "  for  institutions  which  are 
nothing  but  colleges,  and  that,  therefore,  a  fair 
comparison  with  German  universities  is  possible 
only  for  the  dozen  institutions  which  are  adjusted 
to  postgraduate  work.  I  pointed  out  that  in  these 
leading  universities  the  opportunities  offered  stu- 
dents are  not  inferior  to  those  abroad ;  that  the 
theoretical  courses,  not  the  practical  ones,  are 
favored  by  the  students ;  and  that,  especially  in 
unpractical  fields,  as  astronomy,  geology,  eth- 
nology, Sanskrit,  English  philology,  philosophy, 
very  valuable  work  has  been  done.  I  claimed  with 
full  conviction  that  the  doctor's  degree  of  our 
best  universities  is  superior  to  the  average  degree 
in  Germany,  and  that  our  libraries  and  equip- 
ments are  not  seldom  better  than  those  on  the 
other  side.  I  showed  with  enthusiasm  what  an 
increasing  number  of  scholarly  magazines  is  sent 
out  by  our  institutions,  how  great  is  the  output 


84  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

of  new  books  in  every  field,  how  the  academies 
and  scholarly  associations  flourish.  Yes,  I  became 
pathetic,  and  sentimental,  and  ironical,  and  en- 
thusiastic, and  my  friends  maintained  that  I  made 
my  point ;  and  yet  in  my  heart  I  was  glad  that 
no  one  raised  the  other  question,  whether  I  really 
believed  that  American  scholarship  is  to-day  all 
that  it  ought  to  be.  I  should  have  felt  obliged 
to  confess  that  I  did  not ;  and  as  I  speak  now  to 
Americans  only,  I  may  add  here  all  that  I  forgot 
to  tell  my  German  readers. 

I  do  not  want  to  disclaim  a  single  word  of  my 
German  plea  for  the  American  world  of  learning. 
The  situation  is  infinitely  better  than  Europeans 
suppose  it  to  be,  —  in  certain  branches  of  know- 
ledge excellent  work  has  been  done ;  and  yet  I 
am  convinced  that  the  result  stands  in  no  proper 
proportion  to  the  achievements  of  American  cul- 
ture in  all  the  other  aspects  of  national  life,  a 
fact  which  the  best  American  scholars  every- 
where frankly  acknowledge  and  seriously  deplore. 
Yes,  America  now  has  scholarship,  as  well  as 
Germany;  but  it  is  just  as  when  the  Germans 
claim  that  they,  as  well  as  the  Americans,  play 
football,  —  they  do  play  it,  to  be  sure,  but  in  cut- 
aways and  high  collars.  Many  Americans  consider 
that  there  is  nothing  amiss  with  the  condition  of 
scholarship  here,  and  some  are  even  proud  of  it ; 


SCHOLARSHIP  85 

a  nation  which  has  to  "  do  "  things  ought  not  to 
care  much  for  knowledge.  But  there  are  others 
who  see  the  dangers  of  such  an  attitude.  They 
believe  that  there  is  no  ideal  of  learning  and 
searching  for  truth  which  is  too  high  for  the 
American  nation.  They  think,  as  Emerson  said, 
that  "  our  days  of  dependence,  our  long  appren- 
ticeship to  the  learning  of  other  lands  draws  to 
a  close  ;  the  millions  that  around  us  are  rushing 
into  life  cannot  always  be  fed  on  the  remains  of 
foreign  harvests."  And  as  the  first  necessary 
condition  of  such  a  change  they  seek  a  clear  in- 
sight into  the  causes  which  lie  at  the  root  of  this 
shortcoming.  To  these  it  may  perhaps  appear  not 
quite  useless  to  try  to  throw  light  on  those  causes 
from  the  standpoint  of  a  comparison  between  the 
American  and  the  German  conditions  for  produc- 
tive scholarship. 

In  America,  as  in  Germany,  the  question  of 
productive  scholarship  is  essentially  a  university 
question,  as  in  both  countries  the  chief  advancers 
of  knowledge  have  been  at  the  same  time  profes- 
sional daily  teachers  of  academic  youth.  This 
relation  is  in  itself  not  at  all  necessary,  and  cer- 
tainly does  not  hold  true  for  other  countries,  such 
as  France  and  England.  In  England  and  in 
France,  a  great  part  of  the  finest  scholarly  work 
has  been  done  by  men  who  had  no  relations  to 


86  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

academic  institutions;  and  if  they  filled  univer- 
sity positions,  their  role  was,  on  the  whole,  a 
decorative  one,  while  the  real  daily  teaching  was 
done  by  minor  men.  Here,  as  in  Germany,  the 
union  of  scholar  and  teacher  in  one  person  is 
the  rule ;  the  scholars  who  are  not  teachers  are 
in  both  countries  the  exception.  I  do  not  over- 
look the  fact  that  such  exceptional  cases  exist  on 
both  sides ;  historians  like  Rhodes,  Fiske,  Lodge, 
Roosevelt,  and  others  stand  outside  of  academic 
life.  A  similar  situation  is  occupied  by  some 
economists  and  some  naturalists,  especially  those 
connected  with  the  government  institutions  in 
Washington  ;  there  are  physicians  and  inventors, 
lawyers  and  ministers,  who  aim,  outside  of  the 
institutions  of  learning,  toward  real  advancement 
of  knowledge,  and  yet  they  form  here,  exactly  as 
over  there,  such  a  small  minority  that  they  do  not 
determine  the  character  of  the  scholarship  of  the 
country,  while  in  England  and  France  they  are  its 
most  important  factor.  Here,  too,  the  work  of 
the  outsiders  will  be  measured  by  the  standards 
set  by  the  universities.  Every  advantage  and 
disadvantage,  every  reform  and  every  danger  for 
scholarship,  is  in  America,  therefore,  as  in  Ger- 
many, first  of  all  a  university  problem. 

To  give  to  our  inquiry  narrower  limits,  I  shall 
omit  from  consideration  the  law  school,  medical 


SCHOLARSHIP  87 

school,  and  divinity  school.  The  law  schools  es- 
pecially are,  on  account  of  the  differences  of  law, 
so  absolutely  unlike  here  and  abroad  that  they 
may  be  totally  eliminated.  If  we  thus  confine 
ourselves,  on  the  whole,  to  the  humanistic  and  sci- 
entific studies,  to  philology  and  history,  economics 
and  philosophy,  literature  and  the  fine  arts,  math- 
ematics and  physics,  biology  and  chemistry  and 
geology,  and  so  on,  we  compare  similar  mat- 
ters. And  on  this  basis  now  arises  the  question 
at  issue  :  Why  has  Germany's  productive  scholar- 
ship attained  the  power  to  mould  the  thoughts  of 
the  world,  while  America's,  so  far,  has  not  ?  Why 
are  the  German  universities  such  fertile  ground 
that  in  them  even  the  smallest  talent  comes  to 
flower,  and  the  American  universities  such  sterile 
ground  that  here  often  the  finest  energies  are 
destined  to  wither  ? 

II 

One  reason  offers  itself  at  once :  in  Germany, 
the  very  idea  of  a  university  demands  productive 
scholarship  as  the  centre  and  primary  interest  of 
all  university  activity  ;  in  America  it  is  essentially 
an  accessory  element,  a  secondary  factor,  almost 
a  luxury,  which  is  tolerated,  but  never  demanded 
as  a  condition.  But  this  fact  itself  has  deeper 
reasons,  and  we  must  understand  the  whole  spirit 


88  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

of  the  universities  there  and  here  to  understand 
why  it  is  so,  and  why  it  must  be  so  under  the 
conditions  that  obtain  to-day.  In  Germany,  the 
spirit  of  the  university  is  absolutely  different  from 
that  of  the  preceding  stage,  the  gymnasium ;  in 
America,  the  university  work  is  mostly  a  continu- 
ation of  the  college  work,  without  any  essential 
qualitative  difference.  The  postgraduate  work  is 
more  difficult  than  the  undergraduate  work,  the 
teachers  are  expected  to  know  more,  the  subjects 
are  more  advanced  and  specialized;  but  all  the 
changes  are  of  quantitative  character,  and  there 
is  nothing  new  in  principle.  The  university  is 
a  more  difficult  college,  —  a  college  which  presup- 
poses a  greater  amount  of  information,  and  where 
the  best  informed  teachers  of  the  country  are 
teaching ;  but  its  spirit  is  on  the  whole  the  col- 
lege spirit,  merely  on  a  more  elaborate  scale  of 
instruction. 

In  Germany,  there  is  no  greater  difference  than 
exists  between  the  spirit  of  the  university  period 
and  that  of  the  school  time.  The  gymnasium  fur- 
nishes education  and  information  ;  the  university 
brings  to  the  younger  generation  the  scholarly, 
scientific  spirit.  The  gymnasium  distributes  the 
knowledge  which  has  been  collected ;  the  univer- 
sity teaches  the  student  to  take  a  critical  attitude 
toward  all  collected  knowledge.  The  gymnasium 


SCHOLARSHIP  89 

teaches  facts  and  demands  text-books ;  the  univer- 
sity teaches  method  and  presupposes  all  that  can 
be  found  in  books  by  independent  study.  The 
gymnasium  gives  to  the  boy  of  nineteen  nothing 
different  in  principle  from  what  the  boy  of  nine 
receives ;  the  university  offers  to  the  student  of 
twenty  something  absolutely  different  from  what 
he  received  a  year  before.  The  teacher  of  the 
gymnasium  must,  therefore,  be  a  man  who  has 
learned  a  great  deal,  and  has  a  talent  for  impart- 
ing what  he  has  learned ;  the  teacher  of  the  uni- 
versity must  be  a  master  of  method.  But  there 
is  only  one  test  to  prove  that  a  man  has  mastered 
the  methods  of  a  science  :  he  must  have  shown 
that  he  is  able  to  advance  it.  The  teacher  of  the 
university  is,  therefore,  above  all,  a  productive 
scholar,  while  to  the  gymnasium  teacher  produc- 
tive scholarship  is  something  non-essential. 

This  higher  type  of  institution,  this  qualitatively 
new  principle  of  instruction,  has  thus  far  not  been 
completely  realized  in  America.  I  am  speak- 
ing, of  course,  of  the  ideal  and  of  the  theory.  In 
practice,  there  are  many  German  university  pro- 
fessors whose  lectures  run  down  to  mere  school- 
teaching,  and  there  are  many  brilliant  American 
professors  whose  invaluable  scholarly  lectures  and 
research  courses  are  fully  inspired  by  the  highest 
university  ideal.  But  while  the  former  simply  do 


90  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

not  fulfill  their  duty,  and  remain  below  the  level 
of  public  expectation,  the  latter  transcend  the  offi- 
cial and  generally  accepted  ideal  of  university  life. 
The  official  ideal  of  the  American  university  is,  as 
it  has  been  expressed  with  emphasis,  an  institution 
in  which  "  everybody  can  learn  everything."  And 
yet  nothing  is  further  removed  than  this  from 
the  ideal  of  that  other  university  where  not  every 
one  is  admitted  as  a  student,  but  only  the  one  who 
has  reached  a  maturity  in  which  he  can  go  over 
from  mere  learning  to  criticism ;  and  where  not 
everything  is  to  be  learned,  but  one  thing  alone, 
the  highest  intellectual  grasp  of  the  scholarly 
spirit.  A  young  man  who  is  mature  enough  to 
enter  the  university  ought  to  be  able  to  learn 
"  everything  "  for  himself ;  but  the  method  of 
dealing  with  anything,  not  as  a  fact,  but  as  a 
problem,  he  can  gain  only  from  a  master.  The 
college  may  teach  "  things ;  "  the  graduate  school 
ought  to  teach  the  stating  of  problems.  The 
college  teaches  dogmatically ;  the  graduate  school 
ought  to  train  in  critical  thinking.  The  college 
is  for  intellectual  boys ;  the  university  ought  to 
be  for  intellectual  manhood  ;  as  the  college  makes 
the  students  dependent  upon  the  authorities, 
while  the  university  ought  to  teach  them  to  be 
self-dependent,  to  stand  on  their  own  feet. 

This  is  the  point  where  American  intellectual 


SCHOLARSHIP  91 

culture  betrays  its  limitations  :  American  institu- 
tions do  not  show  sufficient  insight  into  the  funda- 
mental fact  that  the  highest  kind  of  knowledge  is 
not  wide,  but  self-dependent.  Yes,  Americans, 
who  are  so  proud  of  their  spirit  of  initiative  and 
independence,  too  often  overlook  the  fact  that 
the  highest  independence  of  character  can  go 
hand  in  hand  with  the  most  slavish  intellectual  de- 
pendence, and  that  ah1  which  is  merely  "  learned," 
all  text-book  information,  all  knowledge  with- 
out mastery  of  method,  is  good  for  boys,  but 
poor  for  intellectual  men.  And  yet  such  a  self- 
dependent  attitude  is  never  the  result  of  a  mere 
skeptical  incredulity  or  of  defiant  contradiction 
of  the  authorities,  but  can  be  gained  only  by  the 
fullest  training  in  methodological  criticism.  No 
one,  even  in  his  special  field,  can  really  examine 
everything  himself,  but  he  is  not  self-dependent 
till  he  fully  knows  how  to  do  it ;  that  is,  till  at 
least  in  one  point  he  has  proved  to  himself  that  he 
is  able  to  go  beyond  all  that  mankind  has  hitherto 
known  about  it.  If  he  is  able  to  master  the 
methods  for  one  problem,  then  he  has  the  power 
to  do  so  for  others  ;  he  may  now  follow  a  leader, 
but  he  knows  that  he  does  not  follow  simply  be- 
cause there  is  a  chain  on  his  leg  which  pulls  him 
along.  No  amount  of  information  can  be  substi- 
tuted for  training,  and  a  university  course  which 


92  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

deals  with  the  history  of  ten  years  from  a  really 
critical  point  of  view  is  therefore  more  important 
than  another  which  pictures  a  thousand  years 
from  a  dogmatic  standpoint.  Self-dependence  in 
knowledge  thus  never  means  ignoring  the  author- 
ities, and  even  in  the  natural  sciences  does  not 
come  from  a  direct  appeal  to  Nature,  as  the  science 
teachers  of  the  schools  too  often  believe.  Nature 
answers  always  only  those  questions  which  we  ask 
her ;  and  the  whole  history  of  science  —  that  is,  the 
authorities  —  must  teach  us  first  how  to  ask  our 
questions  of  Nature.  Self-dependence  means  the 
power  to  understand  the  authorities,  and  to  deal 
with  them  critically. 

As  I  have  said,  the  only  possible  teacher  for 
this  highest  kind  of  intellectual  activity  must  be 
a  scholar  who  is  himself  a  master  of  scientific 
method,  and  as  such  a  master  only  is  the  produc- 
tive scholar  tested.  That  is  the  reason  why  pro- 
ductive scholarship  is  the  very  informing  spirit  of 
German  universities,  and  why  no  teacher  is  ever 
appointed  as  university  decent  who  has  not  proved 
his  power  over  methods  by  publications  which 
have  at  some  point  advanced  human  knowledge. 
Productive  scholarship  will  never  reach  a  really 
high  level  in  America  till  it  becomes  the  inform- 
ing spirit  of  the  American  universities  also;  and 
it  cannot  be  their  spirit  till  the  difference  between 


SCHOLARSHIP  93 

the  ideal  of  the  university  and  the  ideal  of  the 
college,  between  the  critical  and  the  dogmatic 
attitude  in  knowledge,  is  fully  grasped  by  the 
community.  As  long  as  the  university  is  essen- 
tially a  better  equipped  college  on  a  more  elabo- 
rate scale,  the  appointment  of  university  teachers 
must  be  determined  by  the  same  considerations 
that  influence  the  usual  choice  of  a  college  teacher. 
As  it  is,  —  given,  of  course,  the  moral  qualities, 
—  a  man  is  sought  who  has  learned  much  about 
his  subject  and  is  an  efficient  teacher.  But 
whether  he  has  produced  anything  of  scholarly 
value  is,  on  the  whole,  a  secondary  question. 

The  situation  in  our  colleges  is  similar  to  that 
in  the  German  gymnasiums.  The  gymnasium 
teacher  is  not  at  all  unproductive.  Most  of  his 
productions,  to  be  sure,  are  just  as  in  the  colleges 
here,  merely  text-books ;  but  many  gymnasium 
teachers  publish  scholarly  investigations,  and  as 
almost  every  one  has  written  his  doctor's  thesis, 
many  go  on  with  their  productive  university  stud- 
ies ;  some  have  published  excellent  books.  And 
yet  their  publications  are  in  a  way  their  private 
affairs,  not  their  official  duty ;  their  professional 
work  can  be  conceived  as  complete  without  any 
effort  in  that  direction  ;  there  are  even  principals 
of  gymnasiums  who  look  with  a  certain  suspicion 
on  the  too  productive  teacher,  because  they  are 


94  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

afraid  that  he  may  neglect  his  class  duties,  or  may 
raise  the  level  of  instruction  too  high  for  the  pu- 
pils. But  in  any  case,  if  productive  scholarship 
were  in  the  hands  of  these  gymnasium  teachers 
only,  science  and  scholarship  would  be  the  same 
lukewarm  affair  that  it  is  here  in  the  hands  of 
college  men,  —  a  professional  luxury,  relegated 
to  the  scarce  leisure  hours  of  an  overworked  man 
who  has  little  to  gain  from  it,  and  whose  career 
and  professional  standing  are  hardly  influenced 
thereby. 

How  different  the  university  man,  if  university 
instruction  is  rightly  understood  as  the  teaching 
of  method,  of  criticism,  of  self-dependence  !  What 
other  way  is  open  to  prove  the  possession  of  a 
power  than  the  use  —  and  the  successful  use  —  of 
it  ?  A  singer  who  does  not  sing,  a  painter  who 
does  not  paint,  and  a  university  scholar  who  does 
not  advance  human  knowledge,  stand  then  on  ex- 
actly the  same  level.  Of  course  it  is  not  neces- 
sary that  the  productive  work  should  appear 
directly  under  the  name  of  the  author ;  here,  as 
in  Germany,  some  of  the  finest  scholars  put  forth 
their  thoughts  through  the  publications  of  their 
advanced  students,  for  whose  work  they  take  the 
responsibility.  But  if  the  instructor  does  not  pub- 
lish in  one  way  or  another,  directly  or  indirectly, 
theoretical  assurances  will  not  suffice.  To  say 


SCHOLARSHIP  95 

that  a  man  might  have  advanced  human  know- 
ledge, if  he  had  not  preferred  to  give  all  his  time 
to  teaching  by  lectures  or  by  popular  books  and 
articles,  is  absurd,  if  he  never  had  an  opportunity 
to  be  tried.  He  might  just  as  well  say  that  he 
would  have  been  skillful  in  walking  the  tight  rope, 
if  he  had  not  preferred  his  life  long  to  walk  on 
the  floor.  The  fact  that  he  is  a  good  teacher 
has,  of  course,  no  bearing  on  the  point.  If  we 
want  to  find  a  man  who  is  a  master  of  critical 
methods,  we  cannot  be  satisfied  if  the  man  shows 
that  he  has  much  information,  and  skill  in  im- 
parting it.  For  that  we  need  the  original  mind, 
while  the  merely  imitative  thinker  may  make  a 
most  excellent  teacher.  Any  one  who  has  a  per- 
sonality, a  forcible  way  of  presentation,  and  an 
average  intellect  will  be  able  to  be  a  fine  teacher 
of  any  subject  at  six  weeks'  notice.  The  student 
cannot  judge  whether  the  thoughts  brought  for- 
ward in  the  lecture  are  the  instructor's  own 
thoughts  or  a  rehash  of  the  contents  of  half  a 
dozen  text-books ;  or  even  if  they  are  his  own 
thoughts,  whether  they  have  any  legs  to  stand  on. 
Whether  the  teacher's  thoughts  are  cheap  repro- 
ductions or  valuable  critical  studies  can  be  deter- 
mined only  by  a  jury  of  his  peers,  and  the  only 
way  to  communicate  with  them  is  by  publications. 
The  teacher's  papers  and  books  alone  decide 


96  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

whether  he  is  or  is  not  in  possession  of  that  power 
of  scholarly  grasp  which  the  university  student 
is  to  learn  from  him,  and  thus  whether  he  is  or  is 
not  fit  to  be  a  university  teacher. 

m 

No  one  ought  to  interpret  this  to  mean  a  lack 
of  appreciation  for  the  receptive  scholarship  and 
the  fine  teaching  qualities  of  a  good  college  in- 
structor who  wants  to  he  a  teacher  only,  or  a 
writer  of  pleasant  and  helpful  popular  books.  I 
do  not  at  all  claim  that  his  function  is  less  noble, 
or  that  his  achievement  is  less  important  for  the 
community,  and  I  know,  of  course,  that  "  distri- 
bution "  of  knowledge  is  not  at  all  an  easy  or  a 
mechanical  task  when  it  is  well  done ;  the  really 
good  teacher  needs  many  gifts  and  qualities  which 
may  be  absent  in  great  scholars.  I  maintain 
merely  that  the  two  professions  are  different,  — 
as  different  as  that  of  the  photographer  from  that 
of  the  artist.  A  good  photographer  is  certainly 
a  more  useful  being  than  a  bad  artist ;  but  no 
photographer  understands  the  meaning  of  art  who 
thinks  that  he  and  Sargent  are  in  principle  doing 
the  same  thing.  As  long  as.  productive  scholar- 
ship is  not  recognized  by  the  public  consciousness 
as  something  absolutely  different  from  receptive 
scholarship,  its  development  must  remain  an  acci- 


SCHOLARSHIP  97 

dental  one,  and  can  never  reach  the  level  which 
American  civilization  has  reached  in  so  many 
other  directions,  and  which  might  be  expected 
from  the  large  external  resources  of  the  higher 
institutions  of  learning.  That  the  outcome  in 
important  work  is  disappointing,  no  one  can  deny ; 
nor  will  any  one  seriously  doubt  that  the  igno- 
rance of  Europe  in  regard  to  American  work  will 
disappear  rapidly  as  soon  as  really  fundamental 
work  is  done.  As  soon  as  a  Darwin  or  a  Helm- 
holtz,  a  Virchow  or  a  Bunsen,  a  Spencer  or  a  Pas- 
teur or  a  Mommsen  speaks  in  the  smallest  New 
England  college,  the  whole  world  will  find  him  out 
and  listen ;  but  he  must  speak,  as  his  European 
colleagues  have  spoken,  in  the  service  of  produc- 
tive scholarship  only,  while  he  will  remain  unheard 
if  he  follows  the  leadings  of  his  surroundings, 
becomes  merely  a  good  teacher,  writes  text-books 
and  magazine  essays  and  popular  lectures. 

There  is  another  point  on  which  I  must  not  be 
misunderstood.  In  Germany,  the  gymnasium,  as 
the  place  of  receptive  scholarship,  and  the  uni- 
versity, as  the  place  where  the  productive  scholar 
teaches  critical  method,  are  sharply  separated.  I 
do  not  mean  that  this  external  separation  is  in 
itself  necessary,  or,  under  American  conditions, 
either  desirable  or  possible.  Such  a  complete  sep- 
aration can  be  made  only  where  the  government 


98  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

guarantees  an  equality  of  standard,  and  where  con- 
ditions are  equal  throughout  the  land.  In  the 
United  States,  the  system  of  sliding  scales,  of  in- 
finitesimal differences,  of  transitions  from  low 
forms  to  higher  ones  without  sharp  lines  of 
demarcation,  has  shown  itself  to  be  the  soundest 
in  all  educational  matters;  the  smallest  institu- 
tion must  have  the  possibility  of  growing  up  to 
the  highest  requirements,  and  each  local  founda- 
tion must  be  able  to  adapt  itself  to  special  needs. 
In  a  country  where  the  greatest  educational  pro- 
gress comes  through  private  initiative  and  through 
the  slow  raising  of  the  standards  of  requirements 
in  the  social  consciousness,  the  system  of  sliding 
transitions  offers  the  best  chance  for  healthful 
development;  and  the  raising  of  the  graduate 
schools  to  the  plane  of  real  universities  can  come 
only  as  the  fruit  of  such  a  system,  just  as  the 
present  graduate  school  has  developed  itself  nat- 
urally by  that  system  out  of  the  average  college. 
What  is  necessary  is  only  the  development  of  the 
new  ideal  in  the  social  mind.  On  the  other  hand, 
so  long  as  the  real  principle  is  not  acknowledged, 
the  mere  imitation  of  external  forms  or  the  arti- 
ficial construction  of  new  schemes  cannot  bring 
about  an  improvement.  For  instance,  the  drop- 
ping of  the  college  department  represents  no 
progress  at  all,  if  the  remainder  is  in  itself  on  no 


SCHOLARSHIP  99 

higher  level  than  the  average  graduate  school. 
The  claim  of  an  institution  that  it  is  in  the  lead 
because  it  has  no  college  is  without  basis  as  long 
as  its  teachers  are  in  no  way  superior,  as  produc- 
tive scholars,  to  the  average  instructors  of  other 
universities.  The  omission  of  the  lower  forms  is 
no  gain,  and  has  at  present  great  disadvantages. 
I  do  not  believe  that  the  development  of  the 
highest  forms  is  to  be  expected  along  this  line. 
I  remember  I  once  saw  in  the  far  West  two  insig- 
nificant institutions  in  the  same  county.  One 
called  itself,  modestly,  a  college;  the  other,  a 
university.  As  I  saw  clearly  that  the  university 
was  lower  in  its  standards  of  graduation,  I  asked 
the  director  about  the  designation;  and  he 
answered  that  they  called  themselves  a  university 
because  they  were  of  so  much  higher  grade  than 
the  neighboring  college.  I  asked  him  in  what 
respect  they  were  of  higher  grade,  as  they  had  no 
graduate  school,  no  law  school,  and  no  medical 
school.  "  No,"  he  said,  "  we  have  not  all  these, 
but  we  are  higher  because  we  have  no  prepara- 
tory school." 

The  functions  of  the  student  stand,  of  course, 
in  immediate  relation  to  the  functions  of  the 
instructor.  If  the  instructor  gives  information, 
the  student  is  expected  to  learn  facts ;  and  he  shows 
best  by  examinations  whether  or  not  he  has  sue- 


100  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

ceeded.  If  the  task  of  the  instructor  is  to  teach 
the  method  of  scholarly  criticism,  the  student 
aims  at  getting  a  scholarly  grasp ;  and  whether  or 
not  he  has  succeeded  he  can  prove  only  by  show- 
ing that  in  one  little  point,  at  least,  he  can  advance 
human  knowledge.  Original  research  then  be- 
cames  the  backbone  of  his  university  work,  and 
the  publication  of  a  doctor's  thesis  its  natural 
goal.  This  aspect  of  student's  work  grows 
among  us  from  year  to  year,  and  yet  it  has  not 
won  sufficient  strength  to  stand  alone  against  all 
attacks.  There  are  still  institutions  which  do 
their  research  work  as  a  concession  to  a  doubtful 
fashion,  imported  from  Germany,  and  necessary 
as  an  advertisement  in  the  struggle  of  university 
competition  ;  there  is  still  a  majority  which  does 
not  believe  in  it  at  all ;  and  there  are  still  leading 
universities  here  which  do  not  require  the  print- 
ing of  the  doctor's  thesis.  It  is  a  very  curious 
fact  that  the  most  effective  argument  brought  for- 
ward here  again  and  again,  in  the  fight  against 
the  doctor's  thesis,  is  the  cheap  scholarship  of 
many  of  the  German  doctor-dissertations.  At  the 
basis  of  this  there  is  a  misunderstanding,  as  the 
German  doctor's  thesis  cannot  be  compared  with 
the  American  one.  In  Germany  the  doctor-exam- 
ination is,  on  the  whole,  a  purely  decorative  affair 
for  the  gaining  of  a  title  which  has  not  the  slight- 


SCHOLARSHIP  101 

est  consequence  for  the  career  of  a  man,  but  only 
the  social  value  of  a  personal  address.  All  open- 
ings to  the  career  of  teacher,  as  well  as  to  that  of 
lawyer  or  physician,  are  dependent  on  the  very  se- 
vere state  examination,  which  shows  clearly  whether 
or  not  the  candidate  has  acquired  the  scientific  view 
of  his  subjects.  The  man  who  has  passed  the 
state  examination  may  thus  pass  with  a  low  mark 
the  doctor-examination,  even  if  he  presents  merely 
a  hasty,  superficial  piece  of  research,  just  to  sat- 
isfy traditional  regulations.  As  the  degree  has 
no  practical  bearing,  and  as  it  is  always  given 
with  one  of  four  marks,  there  is  no  danger  in 
sometimes  letting  the  thesis  work  run  down.  In 
America,  however,  the  doctor-examination  is  the 
one  goal  of  the  post-graduate  studies;  it  is  the 
one  entrance  gate  to  the  best  positions ;  and  it 
has  thus  the  function  of  the  German  doctorate 
together  with  that  of  the  German  state  examina- 
tion. The  small  group  of  men  for  whom  the  doc- 
tor's degree  in  Germany  has  a  practical  bearing 
is  the  circle  of  those  who  enter  the  university 
career ;  that  is,  those  who  seek  to  become  privat- 
docents  of  a  university,  and  not  teachers  of  a 
gymnasium.  The  entrance  on  a  university  career 
is  indeed  dependent  on  the  "  doctor  "  only,  and 
not  on  the  state  examination ;  but  for  this  pur- 
pose it  is  required  to  gain  the  doctor's  degree 


102  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

with  one  of  the  two  highest  marks,  and  no  thesis 
which  has  been  marked  with  summa  or  magna 
cum  laude  is  of  that  cheap  kind  of  unthinking 
research  which  is  so  often  shown  here  as  a  dread- 
ful example.  Only  these  excellent  theses  can  thus 
be  fairly  compared  with  those  in  question  for 
American  universities,  and  they  are  certainly  of  a 
kind  to  encourage  production  and  publication. 

But  more  than  that.  Even  if  the  dissertations 
were  in  themselves  valueless  for  human  know- 
ledge, if  they  were  unworthy  of  publication,  if 
they  were  unnecessary  as  tests  for  the  students, 
original  research,  with  the  goal  of  a  definite 
special  problem  to  be  settled  by  really  scientific 
methods,  would  continue  to  be  nowhere  more 
needed  than  here,  as  the  one  great  stimulus  which 
our  graduates  get  to  active  scholarly  interest.  In 
Germany  they  find  these  incentives  through  all 
their  lives,  in  a  hundred  forms ;  here  everything 
comes  together  to  work  in  the  other  direction, 
and  to  keep  men  away  from  the  really  scien- 
tific attitude.  The  small  tasks  of  original  re- 
search of  the  students  in  the  university  time 
are  the  little  fountains  in  the  woods,  whose  waters 
unite  in  the  brook  which  is  seen  by  the  world ; 
and  only  if  they  are  plentiful  will  the  brook  ever 
become  a  river.  It  is  well  known  that  the  begin- 
nings of  productive  scholarship  in  this  country, 


SCHOLARSHIP  103 

thirty  or  forty  years  ago,  were  due  to  those  who 
came  home  from  such  research  work  in  German  uni- 
versities, and  that  these  beginnings  have  been  rein- 
forced and  developed  by  the  hundreds  who  have 
gone  abroad  for  their  studies  during  the  last  de- 
cades, till  only  recently  the  time  has  come  when 
the  American  graduate  can  find  the  same  oppor- 
tunities in  the  best  American  universities.  These 
stimulations  of  the  student  time  are  the  real  influ- 
ences which  will  decide  the  future  of  American 
scholarship  ;  and  whoever  belittles  the  value  and 
retards  the  development  of  the  students'  research 
and  of  the  doctorate  must  understand  that  he  is 
helping  to  destroy  the  real  scholarship  of  the  coun- 
try, or  to  make  it  dependent  upon  that  of  other 
nations.  At  present  there  seems  no  occasion  to 
fear  for  the  standard  of  the  degree ;  the  standard 
is  kept  high,  but  the  number  of  those  who  seek  it 
is  far  too  small.  No  one  who  intends  to  teach  in 
a  college,  or  even  in  a  high  school,  ought  to  end 
his  academic  years  before  he  has  attained  the 
degree.  He  has  not,  like  the  university  teacher, 
to  teach  the  methods  of  scholarship,  and,  there- 
fore, is  under  no  necessity  to  lead  the  life  of  a  pro- 
ductive scholar,  but  the  spark  of  active  scholarship 
must  have  touched  him;  if  he  has  remained 
throughout  merely  a  receptive  scholar,  merely  a 
good  college  boy,  even  with  his  Master  of  Arts, 
his  teaching  will  be  sterile  drudgery. 


104  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

rv 

I  have  said  that  after  the  student  days  every- 
thing militates  against  scholarly  production,  in 
this  country  ;  that  our  young  man  enters  into  a 
world  which  does  not  care  for  his  original  work. 
No  one  can  understand  the  conditions  of  produc- 
tive scholarship  here  who  does  not  consider  the 
path  which  our  young  scholar  has  to  follow.  I 
have  at  present  in  my  psychological  seminary  at 
Harvard  twenty-six  advanced  graduate  students, 
—  on  the  average  better  prepared  for  scholarly 
work  than  the  members  of  a  seminary  in  a  Ger- 
man university,  as  the  men  here  are  more  mature 
from  their  more  advanced  age,  and  as  the  stricter 
regulation  of  attendance  and  course-examinations 
has  laid  a  larger  basis  of  information.  What  can 
I  now  hope  from  these  young  men  with  regard  to 
their  chances  of  making  use  of  their  scholarly 
power  in  the  next  twenty  years,  compared  with 
the  chances  which  just  such  a  set  of  young  men 
would  have  in  Germany  ?  Over  there,  the  best 
of  them,  the  more  talented  ones,  the  more  am- 
bitious ones,  and,  I  may  at  once  add,  the  socially 
stronger  ones  would  choose  the  career  of  produc- 
tive scholarship;  and  while  the  majority  would 
be  satisfied  to  jog  along  the  road  of  the  gymna- 
sium teacher,  doing  the  prescribed  daily  work, 


SCHOLARSHIP  105 

without  any  original  effort,  some  would  enter  the 
university  career  as  privat-docents.  There  might 
be  only  three  or  four  in  such  a  group  who  were 
ready  to  do  so,  but  no  instructor  would  feel  dis- 
appointed if  he  knew  that  there  was  at  least  one 
among  his  students  in  whom  the  seed  would  bring 
fruit.  Once  admitted  to  the  university  as  such 
privat-docents,  they  can  teach  as  much  as  they 
want  to,  and,  above  all,  can  teach  whatever  they 
choose,  even  the  most  specialized  topic  in  which 
they  are  interested ;  they  live  in  an  academic 
atmosphere,  devoted  exclusively  to  productive 
thought,  and  so  they  wait  till  a  vacancy  of  a  pro- 
fessorship occurs,  knowing  that  it  will  be  filled 
by  the  man  who  has  done  the  most  valuable  piece 
of  scholarly  work.  Their  whole  ambition  is  thus 
directed  toward  the  advancement  of  science.  Of 
course  the  choice  has  to  be  made  by  men,  and 
thus  human  prejudices  and  passions  must  enter. 
It  is  not  always  the  best  scholar  who  gets  the 
place,  —  cliques  and  parties  obscure  the  ideal 
there  as  everywhere ;  but  at  least  the  principle  is 
safe,  and  certainly  a  local  candidate  has  no  ad- 
vantage over  any  one  else,  for  the  outlook  covers 
all  docents  who  have  entered  the  arena  of  schol- 
arly literature.  And  further,  while  in  democratic 
America  the  appointments  are  made  by  the  presi- 
dent and  by  the  trustees  of  the  institutions,  with- 


106  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

out  the  official  cooperation  of  the  faculty,  in  mon- 
archical Germany  no  government  can  appoint  a 
professor  who  has  not  been  proposed  by  the  fac- 
ulty, —  that  is,  by  the  professional  scholars,  who 
have  no  more  important  interest  than  that  of 
keeping  high,  by  their  cooperation,  the  level  of 
productive  scholarship  in  their  university.  All 
the  academic  premiums  await  there  the  young 
scholar  who  develops  his  scientific  powers,  and 
thus  the  institution  of  docents  becomes  the  real 
backbone  of  German  university  work. 

How  different  here  !  Our  young  men,  when 
they  have  left  our  research  courses,  some  of  them 
with  a  fresh  Ph.  D.  degree  in  their  pockets,  have 
no  other  prospect  before  them  than  to  enter  into 
a  college  as  instructors.  I  do  not  speak  of  those 
who  choose  another  profession,  become  perhaps 
school  superintendents  or  technical  specialists; 
nor  do  I  speak  of  those  whose  work  was  not  satis- 
factory enough  to  secure  them  a  college  position, 
and  who  must  be  contented  with  lower  school 
positions.  I  speak  of  the  best,  —  those  who  get 
all  our  blessings  in  the  form  of  superlative  let- 
ters to  teachers'  agencies  and  college  presidents. 
Even  these  are  satisfied  when  they  get  decent  in- 
structorships  or  assistant  professorships  in  a  col- 
lege ;  and  they  are  delighted  if  the  college  is  by 
chance  not  too  remote  in  the  Southwest,  and 


SCHOLARSHIP  107 

if  it  is  not  so  denominational  that  they  have  to 
sacrifice  their  convictions,  and  if  it  is  not  so  deep 
in  debt  that  half  of  the  promised  salary  cannot  be 
paid  on  time.  Let  us  take,  again,  the  best  cases. 
A  good  man  goes  into  a  good  college.  We  all 
know  what  he  has  to  expect. 

He  finds  an  abundance  of  work,  which  crushes 
by  its  quantity  his  good  will  to  go  on  with  schol- 
arly interests.  The  young  man  who  has  to  con- 
duct twenty  "  recitations  "  a  week,  and  to  read 
hundreds  of  examination  books,  and  to  help  on 
the  administrative  life  of  his  place,  begins  by 
postponing  his  scientific  work  to  the  next  year, 
and  the  year  after  next,  when  he  shall  be  more 
accustomed  to  his  duties.  But  after  postponing 
it  for  a  few  years  more  his  will  becomes  lame,  his 
power  rusty,  his  interest  faded.  The  amount  of 
work,  however,  seems  to  me  the  least  important 
issue,  and  I  think  it  a  mistake  to  regard  it  as  the 
chief  obstacle  to  production.  After  all,  the  day 
has  twenty-four  hours,  and  the  year  has  fifty-two 
weeks ;  a  young  man  with  full  vitality  can  carry 
a  heavy  burden.  I  have  known  men  who  taught 
more  than  twenty  hours  weekly,  and  yet  consid- 
ered the  teaching  as  filling  the  leisure  hours  be- 
tween the  periods  of  real  work,  which  was  their 
scholarly  production.  Much  more  essential  seems 
to  me  the  quality  of  the  duties.  A  young  scholar 


108  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

ought  to  devote  himself  to  special  problems, 
where  he  can  really  go  to  the  sources  :  instead  of 
that,  our  young  instructor  has  to  devote  himself 
to  the  widest  fields,  where  it  is  impossible  to  aim 
at  anything  hut  the  most  superficial  acquaintance. 
The  experienced  master  can  remain  scholarly  even 
when  he  gives  the  general  elementary  courses ; 
the  beginner,  who  has  no  chance  ever  to  focus  on 
one  point,  but  must  all  the  time  teach  merely  the 
outlines  of  his  subject,  will  quickly  sink  to  a 
cheap  undignified  interpretation.  At  first  he  is 
troubled  in  his  scholarly  conscience,  remembering 
the  spirit  of  the  graduate  school ;  but  soon  he 
grows  accustomed  to  the  prostitution  of  science, 
shame  disappears,  he  gets  to  be  satisfied  with  a 
method  of  thinking  which  makes  his  courses 
effective  and  his  work  easy,  and  the  possibility  of 
his  own  production  fades  out  of  sight.  And  he 
has  plenty  of  excuses  on  his  lips  :  the  library  of 
his  college  is  so  poor ;  his  small  laboratory  gives 
him  no  opportunity ;  his  salary  is  too  meagre  to 
let  him  buy  books  for  himself.  Above  all,  he 
wants  to  earn  a  little  additional  money.  Schol- 
arly papers  in  scientific  magazines  are  not  paid 
for.  But  several  convenient  roads  are  open. 
He  may  write  a  short  text-book ;  as  the  students 
must  buy  it,  the  publisher  can  pay  for  it.  Now 
the  scholar  knows  that  there  is  nothing  more  dif- 


SCHOLARSHIP  109 

ficult  and  nothing  more  easy  than  to  write  text- 
books. The  great  scholar,  who  has  tried  his 
power  in  scores  of  special  investigations,  may  try, 
at  the  height  of  his  work,  to  connect  his  thoughts 
about  the  whole  field  into  one  system,  and  to 
translate  it  into  the  simple  terms  of  a  book  for 
beginners.  That  is  the  sort  of  text-book  which 
helps  the  world,  —  nothing  is  more  difficult  and 
more  noble ;  every  line  written  therein  stands  for 
pages.  But  if  a  beginner  comes  and  adds  to 
twenty  text-books  the  twenty-first,  it  is  scientific 
reporter  work,  enervating  and  ruinous  for  the 
scholarly  seriousness  of  the  author.  Another 
way  is  that  of  popular  lectures  —  preferably  be- 
fore women's  clubs  —  and  articles  for  popular 
magazines.  All  that  is  poison  for  the  beginner, 
who  loses  increasingly  the  power  to  discriminate 
between  what  is  solid  and  what  is  for  effect,  as  he 
moves  away  from  the  criticism  of  scholars,  and 
addresses  audiences  which  applaud  every  catchy 
phrase. 

Yet  the  young  sufferer  who  has  all  these  mo- 
tives as  his  conscious  excuses,  and  who  thinks  that 
he  could  do  original  work  if  he  had  less  lectur- 
ing and  more  money,  is  mostly  unconscious  of 
the  strongest  factor  which  pulls  him  down,  as  it  is 
a  negative  factor,  which  is  felt  merely  by  com- 
parison with  the  situation  abroad.  This  negative 


110  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

factor  is  the  absence  of  a  decided  premium  upon 
scholarly  production.  If  he  is  a  fine  man,  with 
vitality,  he  wants  to  get  on  ;  the  safest  way  is  to 
climb  up  in  his  own  institution,  since  the  possi- 
bility of  being  called  to  other  places  depends 
largely  upon  chance.  But  in  any  case  here  the 
advancements  and  the  appointments  are  made 
almost  without  any  reference  to  original  produc- 
tion. The  men  who  busy  themselves  with  ad- 
ministrative troubles,  who  are  favorites  with  the 
elementary  students,  who  are  pleasant  speakers, 
who  show  themselves  industrious  by  manufactur- 
ing books  for  class  use,  win  the  premiums  in  the 
competition.  And  all  these  are  merely  the  ideal 
factors :  there  are  plenty  of  factors  the  reverse  of 
ideal  working  besides.  Yes,  with  the  exception  of 
the  leading  universities,  the  young  scholar  sees 
productive  work  so  lightly  valued  that  he  must 
consider  it  a  very  unsafe  investment  of  energy ; 
and  if  his  passionate  zeal  and  ardent  delight  in 
searching  out  truth  hold  him  fast  to  the  path  of 
scholarship,  he  feels  dimly  that  he  is  damaging 
his  chances  with  the  trustees  of  his  little  college, 
and  thus,  in  the  majority  of  cases,  working 
against  his  own  interest.  What  can  be  expected 
from  the  productive  output  of  a  young  generation 
laboring  under  such  conditions,  compared  with 
the  possibilities  in  Germany,  where  in  the  twenty- 


SCHOLARSHIP  111 

one  universities  more  than  seven  hundred  privat- 
docents  are  at  present  working,  every  one  of  -whom 
adjusts  his  teaching  to  his  pleasure,  —  perhaps 
one  or  two  hours  a  week  on  a  subject  in  which  he 
is  absorbed ;  every  one  of  whom  has  no  other 
ambition,  and  really  no  other  hope,  than  to  draw 
the  attention  of  the  scholarly  public  to  his  schol- 
arly productions,  knowing  that  he  loses  his  chance 
for  advancement  if  he  indulges  in  superficialities  ? 
It  is  just  on  account  of  this  period  of  trial  which 
lies  before  our  young  doctors  that  it  becomes  so 
essential  to  require  the  printing  of  the  doctor's 
thesis.  That  little  printed  sheet  has  once  for  all 
brought  the  beginner  before  the  scholarly  world ; 
and  while  his  daily  work  belongs  to  his  unappre- 
ciative  surroundings,  his  intimate  interests  connect 
him  in  his  lonely  place  with  the  great  outer  world 
of  truth-seekers.  He  follows  up  the  magazines  to 
see  the  traces  of  his  little  publication,  he  remains 
interested  to  defend  his  budding  theory,  he  goes  on 
to  develop  the  incomplete  parts  of  it ;  and  thus 
his  dissertation  becomes  the  one  thread  which 
binds  him  in  his  days  of  instructorship  to  the 
ideals  of  his  graduate-student  time. 

But  let  us  take  for  comparison  the  most  favor- 
able case  under  our  conditions.  Our  young  man 
is  vigorous  and  successful ;  he  becomes  a  professor 
in  a  real  university  after  ten  or  twenty  years.  Is 


112  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

he  there  finally  in  an  atmosphere  where  the 
greatest  possible  output  of  all  that  his  energies 
allow  is  encouraged  by  the  conditions  of  the  insti- 
tution? Of  course  the  situation  is  now  more 
favorable  for  his  serious  work  than  in  the  small 
college,  —  the  standard  is  much  higher,  the  atmo- 
sphere more  dignified ;  the  outer  means  for  work, 
books,  instruments,  are  plentiful ;  advanced  stu- 
dents are  ready  to  follow  him ;  his  teaching  is 
reduced  to  a  very  reasonable  amount,  —  perhaps 
one  or  two  hours  a  day.  Everything  seems  en- 
couraging, and  yet  he  feels  instinctively  that  the 
fullest  stimulus  which  he  had  hoped  for  is  even 
here  not  found ;  he  feels  as  if,  under  other  condi- 
tions, more  might  be  attained  with  his  energies ; 
yes,  even  here  it  is  as  if  he  had  to  do  his  produc- 
tive work,  in  a  way,  against  outer  influences  which 
pull  him  back. 

I  return  therewith  to  the  point  whence  I  started. 
Our  friend  who  has  successfully  found  his  way 
from  the  little  college  to  the  university  finds,  per- 
haps with  surprise,  that,  after  all,  here,  too,  at  all 
decisive  points,  the  college  spirit  overcomes  the 
university  spirit;  that  the  whole  academic  com- 
munity is  controlled  by  the  ideal  of  the  perfect 
distribution  of  knowledge,  and  not  by  respect 
for  productive  scholarship  and  the  imparting  of 
method.  He  sees  that  the  vital  forces  here  also 


SCHOLARSHIP  113 

are  the  good  teachers,  and  not  the  great  think- 
ers. He  sees  himself,  perhaps,  in  a  faculty  where 
real  scholars  mingle  with  men  who  have  not  the 
slightest  ambition  to  advance  human  knowledge, 
hut  who  have  simply  done  on  a  great  scale  all 
that  the  men  in  his  fresh-water  college  did  on 
a  narrow  scale.  He  feels  as  if  his  productive 
scholarship  were  merely  tolerated,  or  at  least  con- 
sidered unessential,  as  no  one  demands  it  from 
the  others  as  an  essential  condition  of  their  pre- 
sence. How  surprised  he  is  when  he  sees  the 
alumni  of  the  university  meet,  and  listens  to  their 
speeches  in  praise  of  the  alma  mater !  He  hears 
beautiful  words  about  patriotism  and  liberal  edu- 
cation, about  athletics  and  gifts  of  money,  about 
the  glorious  history  and  the  gifted  sons  who  have 
become  men  of  public  affairs ;  but  that  the  univer- 
sity is  a  place  for  productive  scholarship  he  does 
not  hear  mentioned.  He  had  thought  that  the 
advances  of  human  knowledge  by  the  members  of 
his  university  were  the  milestones  in  its  history, 
like  the  battles  which  a  regiment  has  fought ;  he 
had  thought  that,  as  in  Germany,  the  great  schol- 
arly conquests  of  the  members  of  the  faculties 
were  the  common  pride  of  the  old  students ;  and 
now  he  sees  that  here,  too,  no  one  officially  val- 
ues his  cherished  ideals.  They  still  remain  his 
private  luxury,  apart  from  human  ambition  and 


114  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

social  premiums.  And  his  greatest  disappoint- 
ment comes  when  he  sees  that  even  here  the  activ- 
ity of  productive  scholarship  adjusts  itself  to  the 
financial  situation,  and  that  all  the  material  con- 
ditions push  the  teachers  away  from  productive 
scholarship  just  as  strongly  in  the  large  univer- 
sity as  in  the  little  college  where  the  instructor 
was  paid  like  a  car  conductor. 


Whenever  in  Greek-letter  societies,  among  sol- 
emn speeches,  some  one  makes  an  academic  oration 
ahout  the  profession  of  the  scholar,  one  feature 
is  never  forgotten  :  the  scholar  does  not  care  for 
money.  That  sounds  certainly  very  uplifting, 
but  it  seems  hardly  true  to  any  one  who  sees  how 
the  great  majority  of  American  professors  seek 
money-making  opportunities  that  have  a  varnish 
of  scholarship,  but  no  pretense  of  scholarly  aims. 
In  a  hundred  forms,  of  course,  the  temptation 
comes,  and  by  a  hundred  means  does  it  creep  into 
the  scholar's  life,  to  absorb  every  hour  of  leisure 
which  ought  to  belong  to  purely  ideal  pursuits. 
He  will  not  do  anything  that  wiU  bring  money, 
but  he  will  do  few  things  that  bring  no  money ; 
and  as  the  reaUy  scholarly  books  never  bring  any 
income,  he  deceives  himself  by  all  kinds  of  com- 
promises, —  writes  popular  books  here  and  arti- 


SCHOLARSHIP  115 

cles  for  an  encyclopaedia  there,  makes  schoolbooks 
and  writes  expert's  testimonials,  works  in  univer- 
sity extension  and  lectures  before  audiences  whose 
judgment  he  despises.  Some  energetic  men  can 
stand  all  that  without  the  slightest  injury  to  their 
higher  work;  for  the  greater  number  it  means 
surrender  as  productive  scholars.  And  yet  it  is 
all  justified  ;  unjustified  alone  is  the  social  situa- 
tion which  forces  upon  a  serious  scholar  such  self- 
destructive  activity,  and  unjustified  is  the  procla- 
mation of  the  maxim  that  the  scholar  ought  not  to 
care  for  a  better  material  fate. 

To  be  sure,  it  is  most  honorable  in  a  scholar  to 
accept  such  a  situation  in  dignified  silence ;  but 
often,  while  it  is  bad  to  speak  about  a  thing,  it 
may  be  worse  not  to  speak  about  it.  It  must  be 
said  in  all  frankness  that  a  financial  situation  in 
which  America's  best  scholars  —  that  is,  those 
who  are  caUed  to  instructorships  of  the  leading 
universities  —  are  so  poorly  paid  that  they  feel 
everywhere  pushed  into  pursuits  antagonistic  to 
scholarship,  thus  crushing  the  spirit  of  produc- 
tive scholarship,  is  not  only  an  undignified  state 
of  things,  but  one  of  the  greatest  dangers  to  the 
civilization  of  the  country.  The  scholar  is  not  to 
be  reproached  as  a  greedy  materialist  for  yielding. 
As  long  as  the  present  situation  of  scholarship 
holds,  the  overwhelming  majority  of  those  who 


116  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

go  into  teaching  will  have  only  narrow  private 
means,  and  yet  they  will  seek  a  comfortable  life, 
and  they  ought  to  seek  it  as  a  background  for 
creative  work.  They  do  not  envy  the  rich  banker 
his  yachts  and  horses  and  diamonds,  but  they  want 
a  home  of  aesthetic  refinement,  they  want  excellent 
education  for  their  children,  they  want  a  library 
well  supplied,  they  want  pleasant  social  inter- 
course and  refreshing  summer  life  and  comfort- 
able travel ;  and  they  ought  to  have  all  that  with- 
out doing  more  than  their  normal  university 
teaching,  being  thus  free  to  devote  the  essential 
part  of  their  time  and  thought  to  the  advance- 
ment of  productive  scholarship.  Exactly  that  is 
the  situation  in  Germany,  and  no  similar  freedom 
of  mind  can  be  reached  here  by  the  scholar  if 
every  university  professor,  called  to  his  place  for 
real  university  work,  has  not  a  salary  which  cor- 
responds to  the  income  of  the  leading  professors 
abroad.  But  to  reproduce  the  benefits  of  the 
German  situation  and  its  influence  on  scientific 
production,  it  is  not  enough  to  raise  the  level  of 
salaries ;  it  is,  above  all,  desirable  to  stop  the 
mechanical  equality  which  exists  here  generally, 
and  which  shows  most  clearly  that,  administra- 
tively, the  American  university  still  stands  fairly 
under  the  ideal  of  the  old  college  type,  where  the 
schoolman  reigns  and  the  scholar  is  a  stranger. 


SCHOLARSHIP  117 

The  raising  of  the  level  of  salaries  may  free  the 
mind  of  the  scholar  from  the  search  for  opportu- 
nities to  earn  money,  and  thus  from  the  corrupt- 
ing influence  of  pseudo-scholarly  temptations,  but 
it  is  clearly  a  negative  factor  only ;  the  inequality 
of  salaries  is  a  positive  stimulus,  provided  that  the 
highest  salaries  are  really  given  to  secure  the  ser- 
vices of  the  greatest  scholars.  In  Germany,  it 
not  seldom  happens  that  the  income  of  one  mem- 
ber of  the  faculty  is  five  times  larger  than  that  of 
a  colleague.  There  the  school-teachers  of  the 
gymnasium  have  equal  salaries,  and  their  income 
grows  according  to  seniority.  That  is  entirely 
suitable,  and  a  college  cannot  do  otherwise.  But 
to  apply  that  principle  to  the  valuation  of  schol- 
arly production  seems  to  the  Germans  not  more 
logical  than  to  fix  the  prices  for  all  portrait  paint- 
ers according  to  the  square  inches  of  their  can- 
vas and  their  years  of  service.  With  them,  many 
professors  have  much  higher  incomes  than  the 
highest  officers  of  the  state,  who  are  their  admin- 
istrative superiors.  Germany  would  never  have 
reached  that  leading  position  in  scholarship  which 
is  hers  if  she  had  treated  her  scholars  like  clerks 
or  school-teachers,  for  whom  the  demand  and 
supply  can  regulate  the  price  mechanically,  be- 
cause the  demand  exists  as  a  necessary  one.  The 
demand  for  higher  scholarship  has  to  be  devel- 


118  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

oped,  and  the  supply  has  thus  to  be  furthered 
beyond  the  present  demand  by  a  protective  policy. 

But  America  needs  to  offer  large,  even  very 
large  salaries  on  still  another  ground.  The  free- 
ing of  the  scholar's  mind  from  financial  cares,  and 
the  stimulation  of  his  productive  energies,  by  a 
system  which  gives  the  highest  rewards  to  the 
best  scholarly  work,  the  New  World  would  share 
with  the  Old ;  but  there  is  a  third  reason,  which 
holds  for  America  alone.  It  is  to  my  mind  the 
most  important ;  and  I  confess  that  I  should  not 
have  cared  to  touch  the  difficult  salary  problem 
at  all  if  this  point,  which  will  decide  the  future 
of  American  scholarship,  were  not  involved.  We 
need  high  salaries,  because  at  present  they  offer 
the  only  possible  way  to  give  slowly  to  productive 
scholarship  social  recognition  and  social  stand- 
ing, and  thus  to  draw  the  best  men  of  the  land. 
Without  great  social  premiums  America  will  never 
get  first-rate  men  as  rank  and  file  in  the  uni- 
versity teaching  staff ;  and  with  second-rate  men 
productive  scholarship  which  is  really  productive 
for  the  world  can  never  be  created. 

The  greater  number  of  those  who  devote  them- 
selves to  higher  teaching  in  America  are  young 
men  without  means,  too  often,  also,  without 
breeding ;  and  yet  that  would  be  easily  compen- 
sated for  if  they  were  men  of  the  best  minds,  but 


SCHOLARSHIP  119 

they  are  not.  They  are  mostly  men  with  a 
passive,  almost  indifferent  sort  of  mind,  without 
intellectual  energy,  men  who  see  in  the  academic 
career  a  modest,  safe  path  of  life,  —  exactly  the 
kind  of  men  who  in  Germany  become  gymnasium 
teachers.  But  those  who  in  Germany  become 
docents  of  the  university  are  for  the  most  part  of 
the  opposite  type ;  they  are,  on  the  whole,  the 
best  human  material  which  the  country  has. 
They  come  mostly  from  well-to-do  families,  and 
seek  the  career  because  they  feel  the  productive 
mental  energy  and  the  ambition  to  try  their 
chances  in  a  field  of  honor.  Indeed,  while  the 
profession  of  the  gymnasium  teacher  stands  in  the 
social  estimation  of  the  German  below  that  of  the 
lawyer  and  the  physician,  the  banker  and  the 
wholesale  merchant,  the  high  respect  of  the  Ger- 
man for  productive  science  and  art  brings  it  about 
that  the  profession  of  the  university  teacher,  to- 
gether with  the  aristocratic  professions  of  officer 
and  diplomat,  stands  as  the  most  highly  esteemed 
socially.  Titles  and  decorations,  as  symbolic 
forms  of  public  appreciation,  add  another  to  the 
outer  stimulants  to  the  greatest  efforts.  Thus  the 
social  honor  of  the  career,  the  large  income,  and, 
above  all,  the  delights  of  a  life  devoted  purely  to 
the  clean  enjoyment  of  production,  work  together 
to  draw  into  the  nets  of  the  universities  the  very 


120  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

best  human  material ;  and  as,  after  all,  personality 
is  everywhere  the  decisive  factor,  the  high  quality 
of  this  human  material  secures  the  immense  suc- 
cess of  the  work. 

Nothing  similar  stands  as  yet  as  a  temptation 
before  the  mind  of  the  young  American,  and  it 
would  be  to  ignore  the  nature  of  man  to  believe 
that  while  all  social  premiums,  ah1  incentives  for 
ambition  and  hopes,  are  absent,  a  merely  theoret- 
ical interest  will  turn  the  youth  to  a  kind  of  life 
which  offers  so  little  attraction.  Can  we  really 
expect  many  brilliant  young  men  of  good  families 
to  enter  a  career  which  will  for  years  demand 
from  them  superficial  teaching  in  the  atmosphere 
of  a  little  college,  with  no  hope,  even  in  the  case 
of  highest  success,  of  a  salary  equal  to  the  income 
of  a  mediocre  lawyer,  and  in  a  professional  atmo- 
sphere in  which  the  spirit  of  scholarly  interest 
is  suppressed  by  the  spirit  of  school  education  ? 
Our  best  young  men  must  rush  to  law  and  bank- 
ing, and  what  not.  The  type  of  man  who  in 
Germany  goes  into  the  university  career  is  in 
this  country  the  exception  among  the  younger 
instructors.  Those  exceptions  must  become  the 
rule  before  the  whole  level  of  production  will  be 
raised.  As  soon  as  the  first-class  men  are  drawn 
to  it,  no  quantity  of  work  will  harm  them ;  men 
of  that  stamp  have  the  vitality  to  do  first-class 


SCHOLARSHIP  121 

work  under  any  circumstances.  America  cannot 
bring  it  about  by  means  of  decorations  and  titles, 
and,  as  in  England,  baronetcies ;  and  it  cannot 
start  with  social  prestige,  as  social  prestige  is 
naturally  only  a  consequence  of  first-class  work 
and  of  the  participation  of  first-class  men.  High 
salaries  are,  therefore,  at  present,  the  only  means 
which  the  country  has  at  its  disposal. 

I  well  remember  a  long  conversation  which  I 
had  with  one  of  the  best  English  scholars,  who 
came  over  here  to  lecture  when  I  had  been  only 
a  short  time  in  the  country,  and  was  without  ex- 
perience in  American  academic  affairs.  We  spoke 
about  the  disappointingly  low  level  of  American 
scholarship,  and  he  said  :  "  America  will  not  have 
first-class  scholarship,  in  the  sense  in  which  Ger- 
many or  England  has  it,  till  every  professor  in  the 
leading  universities  has  at  least  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars salary,  and  the  best  scholars  receive  twenty- 
five  thousand  dollars."  I  was  distinctly  shocked, 
and  called  it  a  pessimistic  and  materialistic  view. 
But  he  insisted :  "  No,  the  American  is  not  anxious 
for  the  money  itself ;  but  money  is  to  him  the 
measure  of  success,  and  therefore  the  career  needs 
the  backing  of  money  to  raise  it  to  social  respect 
and  attractiveness,  and  to  win  over  the  finest 
minds."  My  English  acquaintance  did  not  con- 
vince me  at  that  time,  but  the  years  have  con- 


122  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

vinced  me  :  the  years  which  have  brought  me  into 
contact  with  hundreds  of  students  and  instructors 
in  the  whole  land ;  the  years  in  which  I  have 
watched  the  development  of  some  of  the  finest  stu- 
dents, who  hesitated  long  whether  to  follow  their 
inclination  toward  scholarship,  and  who  finally 
went  into  law  or  into  business  for  the  sake  of  the 
social  premiums. 

As  soon  as  the  best  men  are  attracted  and  ex- 
cellent work  is  really  done,  the  development  will 
be  a  natural  one.  On  the  one  hand,  the  commu- 
nity will  begin  to  understand  the  great  meaning 
of  productive  scholarship,  and  its  world- wide  dif- 
ference from  receptive  and  distributing  scholar- 
ship ;  university  work  will  thus  get  its  social  re- 
cognition, and  the  ambition  to  be  a  productive 
scholar  —  not  merely  a  pleasant  author  —  will  be 
the  highest  stimulus  in  itself,  and  will  secure  for 
all  time  the  highest  standard.  Then,  also,  the 
question  of  salaries  will  become  quite  secondary. 
America  has  no  difficulty  in  rilling  the  positions 
of  ambassadors,  even  though  the  expenses  are  not 
seldom  three  times  greater  than  the  salaries.  In 
the  same  way,  Germany  would  be  able  to  fill  its 
professorial  chairs  if  they  brought  no  salary  at 
all ;  the  honor  of  the  place  rewards  its  holder, 
but  at  first  this  honor  must  be  made  clear  to  the 
community.  On  the  other  hand,  as  soon  as  the 


SCHOLARSHIP  123 

really  best  men  go  into  the  work,  they  must  break 
that  too  narrow  form  which  is  the  relic  of  an  un- 
productive past :  teaching  in  a  college  cannot  be 
then  any  longer  the  necessary  preparation  for  a 
real  university  position.  Something  like  the  Ger- 
man institution  of  the  decent,  which  keeps  the 
young  scholar  from  the  beginning  in  the  large 
university,  with  work  according  to  his  own  taste, 
must  become  the  rule.  That  would  bring  second- 
ary changes  in  the  administration,  which  would 
make  the  difference  between  college  and  university 
still  more  marked.  The  graduate  school  would  be- 
come more  and  more  the  place  for  real  intellectual 
independence,  and  reinforcing  in  the  university 
teachers  the  spirit  of  scholarly  production.  And 
this,  again,  would  set  higher  standards  for  those 
college  teachers  who  feel  the  stimulus  to  creative 
scholarship ;  as  candidates  for  the  university  pro- 
fessorships, these  men  would  stand  in  line  with  the 
docents,  as  every  vacant  chair  would  be  filled  by 
the  author  of  the  most  important  contributions  to 
human  knowledge.  Thus  a  mutual  stimulation 
would  bring  about  a  new  academic  situation,  in 
which  American  scholarship  would  become  equal 
to  the  best  European  production  ;  but  that  con- 
dition can  never  be  reached  as  long  as  the  univer- 
sity keeps  up  artificially  the  forms  and  the  spirit 
of  the  college. 


124  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

Of  course  all  such  considerations  lose  their 
power  and  meaning  as  soon  as  the  end  and  purpose 
is  contested.  Whoever  imagines  that  productive 
scholarship  is  a  kind  of  dreamy  idleness,  which  is 
of  no  use  for  a  busy  nation,  can  have  no  interest 
in  anything  which  goes  beyond  a  liberal  education, 
and  he  will  be  quite  willing  to  import  from  Europe 
the  material  of  new  thoughts  for  that  liberal  edu- 
cation. This  is  not  the  place  to  repeat  all  the 
commonplaces  which  point  out  the  utter  absurdity 
of  such  a  view.  I  do  not  care  to  demonstrate  here 
that  even  material  welfare,  industry,  and  commerce 
and  war,  health  and  wealth,  are  from  year  to  year 
increasingly  dependent  upon  the  quiet  work  of 
scholars  and  scientists,  —  work  done  without  direct 
practical  aim,  done  merely  for  the  honor  of  truth. 
And  still  less  do  I  desire  to  enter  upon  sounding 
declarations  that  the  real  civilization  of  a  nation 
is  expressed,  not  by  its  material  achievements,  but 
by  the  energies  which  are  working  in  it  toward  the 
moral  life  and  the  search  for  truth  and  the  creation 
of  beauty.  I  have  spoken  here  only  to  those  who 
agree  that  America  must  not  stand  behind  any 
nation  in  its  real  productive  scholarship,  in  its 
intellectual  creation,  in  its  power  to  mould  the 
thoughts  of  the  world. 

The  only  sound  objection  seems  the  familiar  one 
that  Americans  have  no  talent  for  scholarship. 


SCHOLARSHIP  125 

It  has  been  said  that,  just  as  England  has  no  great 
composer,  America  will  never  have  a  great  scholar. 
I  do  not  believe  that.  At  the  middle  of  the  sev- 
enteenth century  all  the  nations  of  Europe  had 
great  philosophers,  —  Bacon  and  Hobbes  in  Eng- 
land, Descartes  and  Malebranche  in  France,  Gro- 
tius  and  Spinoza  in  Holland,  Bruno  and  Cam- 
panella  in  Italy;  and  only  Germany  had  the 
reputation  of  having  no  talent  for  philosophy. 
It  was  just  before  Leibnitz  appeared  on  the  hori- 
zon, and  Kant  and  Fichte  and  Hegel  followed, 
and  Germany  became  the  centre  of  philosophy. 
As  soon  as  the  right  conditions  are  given,  here 
too  new  energies  will  rush  to  the  foreground.  In 
carefully  watching,  year  after  year,  American  stu- 
dents, I  am  fully  convinced  that  their  talent  for 
productive  scholarship  is  certainly  not  less  than 
that  of  the  best  German  students.  Compared  with 
them,  our  students  have  an  inferior  training  in  hard 
systematic  work,  as  their  secondary  school  edu- 
cation is  usually  inferior ;  but  I  do  not  wish  to 
touch  again  upon  that  dangerous  chapter.  And 
secondly,  they  have  infinitely  poorer  chances  for 
scholarly  work  in  their  future,  as  I  have  fully 
pointed  out.  With  a  more  strenuous  preparatory 
training  behind  them,  and  a  more  favorable  oppor- 
tunity for  productive  work  before  them,  these  stu- 
dents would  be  the  noblest  material  from  which 
to  develop  American  scholarship. 


128  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

And  I  gain  my  strongest  conviction  and  belief  in 
American  scholarship  from  my  admiration  for  all 
that  the  scholars  of  the  past  and  of  the  present 
have  done.  Indeed,  it  is  with  enthusiasm  that 
I  look  upon  the  personal  achievements  in  schol- 
arship all  over  the  land.  Not  only  in  Harvard, 
where  I  see  the  memory  of  noble  scholars  like 
Agassiz  and  Peirce,  Gray  and  Child,  honored  and 
imitated,  and  where  in  my  own  philosophical  de- 
partment colleagues  of  eminent  creative  power  set 
the  standard ;  no,  in  the  most  different  universities, 
and  often  even  in  small  colleges,  I  have  admired 
the  productiveness  of  brilliant  scholars.  Yet  I 
have  always  felt  instinctively  how  much  more  of 
lasting  value  these  scores  of  scholars  might  have 
produced,  had  not  all  the  social  factors,  all  the 
external  conditions,  all  the  public  institutions  and 
public  moods,  worked  against  them,  and  hindered 
and  hampered  their  splendid  work.  Yes,  I  should 
not  have  expressed  any  of  these  considerations  did 
I  not  hope  that  it  will  be.  clear  to  every  one  that 
all  my  criticism  is  directed  merely  against  the  sys- 
tem, and  never  against  persons.  American  scholar- 
ship as  a  whole  is  so  far  weak,  and  not  to  be  com- 
pared with  America's  achievements  in  technique 
and  industry,  in  commerce  and  public  education  ; 
inferior  even  to  its  poetry  and  architecture.  But 
it  is  merely  because  the  institutions  are  undevel- 


SCHOLARSHIP  127 

oped ;  the  best  musicians  cannot  play  a  symphony 
on  a  fiddle  and  a  drum.  Yet  it  is  wonderful  how 
much  has  been  done  in  the  last  twenty  years 
against  and  in  spite  of  the  public  spirit ;  how 
much,  after  all,  has  been  produced  while  every- 
thing was  crushing  the  zeal  for  production.  This 
fact,  that  America  has  accomplished  something, 
even  under  the  most  adverse  circumstances, 
strongly  inspires  the  hope  that  it  will  do  great 
things  when  once  the  circumstances  shall  be  as 
favorable  as  they  are  in  Germany ;  that  is,  when 
the  university  work  is  by  its  aims  clearly  separated 
from  the  work  of  the  lower  college  classes, 'when 
the  calls  to  university  chairs  are  made  first  of  all 
with  reference  to  scholarly  production,  when  the 
young  scholar  has  a  chance  to  remain  as  docent 
from  the  beginning  in  advanced  university  work, 
and  when  the  social  side  of  the  profession  is  so 
developed  that  it  attracts  the  best  men  of  the 
country.  The  development  of  the  institutions, 
on  the  other  hand,  has  been  such  a  rapid  one  in 
the  last  years  that  certainly  the  hope  is  justified 
that  the  last  step  will  soon  be  taken  :  the  time  is 
ripe  for  it.  Then  the  universities  will  become  the 
soul  of  the  country,  and  productive  scholarship 
will  be  the  soul  of  the  universities  ;  the  best  men 
will  then  enter  into  their  service,  and  the  produc- 
tive scholarship  of  the  country  will  be  gigantic 
in  just  proportion  to  its  resources. 


IV 

WOMEN 
I 

NOT  long  ago,  I  had  an  enjoyable  call  from  a 
young  German  whose  purpose  in  crossing  the 
ocean  was  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  American  life. 
Very  naturally  we  talked,  as  fellow  countrymen 
do,  of  the  impressions  which  the  New  World 
makes  upon  the  foreigner  who  has  just  reached 
its  shores.  I  asked  him  whether  he  kept  a  diary. 
He  declared  that  he  did  not  have  time  for  that ; 
but  he  showed  me  a  little  pocket  registry  in 
which  he  was  accustomed,  as  a  man  of  business, 
to  enter  his  debits,  credits,  and  doubtful  accounts. 
Further  on  in  it,  he  had  instituted  a  similar  reck- 
oning with  America.  He  explained  that  this  was 
the  briefest  way  of  grouping  his  impressions.  I 
have  forgotten  the  most  of  these,  since  the  record 
was  one  of  considerable  length ;  but  of  the  cred- 
its I  remember  distinctly  such  items  as  the  parlor 
cars,  oysters,  waterfalls,  shoes,  autumn  leaves, 
libraries,  after-dinner  speeches,  the  city  of  Bos- 
ton, the  ice-cream,  the  hospitality,  the  "  Atlantic 


WOMEN  129 

Monthly,"  etc.  Then  came  the  doubtful  accounts : 
the  newspapers,  mince  pies,  millionaires,  sleeping 
cars,  furnaces,  negroes,  receptions,  poets,  the  city 
of  New  York,  etc.,  etc.  And  finally  came  the 
debits  :  monuments,  politicians,  boarding  houses, 
the  spring  weather,  servants,  street  cleaning,  com- 
mittee meetings,  pavements,  sauces,  and  at  least 
three  pages  more.  But  what  impressed  me  most 
of  all  —  and  by  reason  of  which  the  little  book 
comes  to  my  mind  at  this  moment  —  was  a  simple 
"  family  division  "  that  I  found  there  :  under  the 
debits  the  children,  under  the  doubtful  accounts 
the  men,  and  under  the  credits  the  women. 

It  gave  in  so  simple  a  formula  what  all  of  us 
had  felt  during  our  first  months  in  the  New 
World  !  We  were  all  amazed  at  the  pert  and  dis- 
respectful children,  and  we  were  all  fascinated  by 
the  American  women.  Now  and  then  arose  in 
our  souls,  perhaps,  a  slight  suspicion  as  to  whether 
these  two  things  can  really  go  together :  it  seems 
so  much  more  natural  to  expect  that  a  perfect 
woman  will  provide  also  for  a  perfect  education 
of  her  children  ;  but  whenever  we  met  this  woman 
herself,  whenever  we  saw  her  and  heard  her,  all 
skepticism  faded  away ;  she  was  the  perfection  of 
Eve's  sex.  And  one  group  always  attracts  our 
attention  the  most  keenly,  —  the  college  bred 
woman.  Tl^ere  are  beautiful  and  brilliant  and 


130  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

clever  and  energetic  women  the  world  over,  but 
the  college  girl  is  a  new  type  to  us,  and,  next  to 
the  twenty-four  story  buildings,  nothing  excites 
our  curiosity  more  than  the  women  who  have 
their  bachelor's  degree.  Some  mingle  with  their 
curiosity  certain  objections  on  principle.  They 
remember  that  the  woman  has  some  grains  less  of 
brain  substance  than  the  man,  and  that  every 
woman  who  has  learned  Greek  is  considered  a 
grotesque  bluestocking.  But  even  he  who  is 
most  violently  prejudiced  is  first  reconciled,  and 
then  becomes  enthusiastic  in  theory  or  married  in 
practice.  He  wanders  in  vain  through  the  col- 
leges to  find  the  repulsive  creature  he  expected, 
and  the  funny  picture  of  the  German  comic 
papers  changes  slowly  into  an  enchanting  type 
by  Gibson.  And  when  he  has  made  good  use  of 
his  letters  of  introduction,  and  has  met  these  new 
creations  at  closer  range,  has  chatted  with  them 
before  cosy  open  fires,  has  danced  and  bicycled 
and  golfed  with  them,  has  seen  their  clubs  and 
meetings  and  charities,  —  he  finds  himself  dis- 
couragingly  word-poor  when  he  endeavors  to 
describe,  with  his  imperfect  English,  the  impres- 
sion that  has  been  made  upon  him ;  he  feels  that 
his  vocabulary  is  not  sufficiently  provided  with 
complimentary  epithets.  The  American  woman 
is  clever  and  ingenious  and  witty ;  she  is  brilliant 


WOMEN  131 

and  lively  and  strong ;  she  is  charming  and  beau- 
tiful and  noble ;  she  is  generous  and  amiable  and 
resolute ;  she  is  energetic  and  practical,  and  yet 
idealistic  and  enthusiastic  —  indeed,  what  is  she 
not? 

And  when  we  are  in  our  own  country  once 
more,  we  of  course  play  the  reformer,  and  join 
heartily  the  ranks  of  those  who  fight  for  the 
rights  of  women  and  for  their  higher  education. 
I  have  myself  stood  in  that  line.  Some  years 
ago,  —  after  my  first  visit  to  America,  the  pro- 
blem of  women  and  the  universities  was  much 
discussed  in  Germany,  and  about  one  hundred 
university  professors  were  asked  for  their  opin- 
ions, which  were  published  in  a  volume  entitled 
"  The  Academic  Woman."  And  when  I  sat 
down  to  furnish  my  own  contribution  to  this 
subject,  there  appeared  before  my  grateful  imagi- 
nation the  lovely  pictures  of  the  college  yards 
which  I  had  seen  from  New  England  to  Califor- 
nia; I  saw  once  more  the  sedate  library  halls 
where  the  fair  girls  in  light-colored  gowns  radi- 
ated joy  and  happiness  ;  I  saw  before  me  the  Ivy 
procession  of  the  Smith  College  students ;  I  saw 
again  the  most  charming  theatrical  performance 
I  have  ever  enjoyed,  the  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream,  given  by  Wellesley  students  on  a  spring 
day  in  the  woods  by  the  lake ;  I  saw  once  more 


132  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

the  eager  students  in  cap  and  gown  in  front  of 
Pembroke  Hall,  at  Bryn  Mawr,  and  I  saw  once 
more  the  Radcliffe  Philosophy  Club,  where  we 
prolonged  our  discussions  through  so  many  de- 
lightful evenings.  A  German  Wellesley  and 
Bryn  Mawr,  I  exclaimed,  a  German  Smith  and 
Vassar,  —  that  is  the  pressing  need  of  our  father- 
land !  My  enthusiastic  article  was  reprinted  and 
quoted  in  the  discussions,  up  and  down  the  land ; 
thus  I  found  myself  suddenly  marching  in  line 
with  the  friends  of  woman's  emancipation  ;  and 
I  was  proud  that  I  —  the  first  one  in  my  German 
university  to  do  so  —  had  admitted  women  as 
regular  students  into  my  laboratory,  years  before 
I  came  to  America. 

All  that  was  long  ago.  I  do  not  now  see 
American  life  with  the  eyes  of  a  newcomer. 
That  does  not  mean  that  I  to-day  admire  Ameri- 
can women  less  than  before,  nor  does  it  mean 
that  I  falter  in  my  hopes  that  Germany  will  ab- 
sorb American  ideas  in  the  realm  of  higher  edu- 
cation for  girls.  All  these  feelings  remain  the 
same,  and  yet,  since  the  surface  view  of  the  tour- 
ist has  been  replaced  by  insight  into  the  deeper 
mechanism,  my  creed  has  changed.  I  believe  to- 
day that  it  is  no  less  important  for  America  to  be 
influenced  by  the  German  ideals  of  a  woman's 
life  than  for  Germany  to  learn  from  America. 


WOMEN  133 

Of  course  when  I  speak  of  German  ideals,  I  do 
not  mean  that  witless  parody  which  decorates  the 
speeches  of  woman  suffragists.  I  mean  the  real 
German  woman,  who  is  to  Americans  who  have  a 
chance  to  come  into  full  contact  with  German  life 
mostly  something  of  a  surprise.  They  expected 
a  slave  or  a  doll,  a  narrow-minded  creature  with- 
out intelligence  and  interests,  and  now  their  ex- 
perience is  like  that  of  a  lady  from  Boston,  —  if 
I  may  be  allowed  to  make  use  of  her  home  letter, 
—  who  finds  that  every  woman  with  whom  she 
becomes  acquainted  in  Germany  has  her  serious 
special  interests ;  that  they  are  all  quite  other 
than  she  had  imagined  them.  And  what  is  much 
to  the  point,  the  Germany  of  to-day  is  not  that  of 
twenty  years  ago.  The  immense  industrial  devel- 
opment of  the  whole  country,  which  has  brought 
wealth  and  strength  and  fullness  of  life  into  the 
whole  organism,  and  which  has  raised  the  stand- 
ard of  social  existence,  has  left  no  sphere  of  Ger- 
man life  untouched. 

The  efforts  of  this  new  Germany  in  the  in- 
terests of  the  woman  have  taken  four  different 
forms,  —  four  tendencies  which  naturally  hang 
together,  but  externally  are  sometimes  even  an- 
tagonistic. The  first  movement,  which  applies  to 
the  largest  number  of  individuals,  is  that  which 
tends  to  soften  the  hardships  of  the  female  wage- 


134  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

earner,  especially  among  the  laborers.  The  sec- 
ond seeks  to  raise  the  character  of  the  general 
education  of  girls  in  the  higher  classes.  The 
third  endeavors  to  open  new  sources  of  income 
to  the  better  educated  women  of  narrow  circum- 
stances, and  the  fourth  has  as  its  aim  the  clearing 
of  the  way  for  women  of  special  talent,  that  they 
may  live  out  their  genius  for  the  good  of  human- 
ity. I  have  said  that  these  impulses  move  partly 
in  opposite  directions ;  to  widen  the  horizon  of 
the  women  of  the  higher  classes  and  to  prepare 
them  for  professional  work  means  to  draw  them 
away  from  the  hearth,  while  all  the  efforts  in  be- 
half of  the  women  in  the  mills  and  shops  tend  to 
bring  them  again  to  the  hearth  of  the  home. 
The  one  group  gave  too  much  time  to  the  mere 
household,  in  its  narrowest  sense  ;  the  other  group 
had  too  little  time  for  this.  The  progress  in  all 
four  directions  is  almost  a  rapid  one ;  the  legisla- 
tion in  the  interest,  and  for  the  protection,  of 
working-women  is  a  model  for  the  world ;  and  — 
to  point  to  the  top  of  the  pyramid  —  the  conser- 
vative universities  have  opened  wide  their  doors. 
Last  winter  431  women  were  admitted  to  the 
University  of  Berlin  alone. 

These  four  tendencies,  which  ought  to  remain 
clearly  separated  in  every  discussion,  as  the  usual 
mixing  of  them  brings  confusion,  have  neverthe- 


WOMEN  135 

less  a  single  background  of  principles.  One  of 
these,  which  sounds  of  course  utterly  common- 
place, is,  that  it  must  remain  the  central  function 
of  the  woman  to  be  wife  and  mother ;  and  the 
other  is  that  public  life  and  culture,  including 
politics,  public  morality,  science,  art,  higher  edu- 
cation, industry,  commerce,  law,  literature,  the 
newspaper,  and  the  church,  are  produced,  formed, 
and  stamped  by  men.  I  do  not  mean  that  every 
woman,  or  even  every  man  who  works  for  wo- 
man's rights  in  Germany  to-day  is  ready  to  ac- 
knowledge these  two  principles.  The  social-demo- 
cratic party,  whose  spokesman,  Bebel,  has  written 
a  most  striking  book  on  the  woman,  would  reject 
these  principles  decidedly ;  and  whoever  plunges 
into  the  literature  of  the  more  radical  wing  must 
hear  at  once  that  free  love  is  the  only  decent  rule, 
and  that  every  blunder  in  civilization  has  come 
from  the  old-fashioned  notion  that  men  may  med- 
dle with  public  affairs  instead  of  trusting  them 
to  the  judgment  of  women.  But  all  these  de- 
clamations have  accomplished  nothing ;  they  have 
not  removed  a  single  pebble  from  the  path  of  the 
woman.  Every  tendency  that  strikes  against 
those  two  fundamental  principles  of  German  con- 
viction has  been  paralyzed  by  the  spirit  of  the 
country.  It  may  be  said,  without  exaggeration, 
that  all  the  efforts  towards  the  solution  of  the 


136  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

woman  question  in  Germany  strengthen  and  re- 
inforce the  family  idea.  The  only  exceptions  to 
this  are  the  liberal  provisions  for  the  highest 
development  of  women  of  unusual  talent;  but 
genius  must  always  be  treated  as  an  exception, 
and  such  exceptions  have  existed  at  all  times. 
The  few  who  take  the  doctor's  degree,  and  who 
feel  the  mission  for  productive  work  in  scholar- 
ship, can  thus  be  set  aside  in  the  discussion,  while 
the  situation  as  a  whole  suggests  most  clearly  the 
irregularity  of  such  a  vocation,  and  does  not  push 
the  average  woman  into  such  a  path. 

The  three  remaining  movements  alone  have  a 
typical  value.  But  there  cannot  be  the  slightest 
doubt  that  all  that  tends  to  uplift  the  lot  of  the 
working-woman  protects  first  the  home  as  a  whole 
in  protecting  the  individual  girl  or  wife  or  mother. 
The  central  endeavor  is  to  give  her  time  for  the 
household  cares,  and  for  her  functions  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  family.  The  higher  education,  on  the 
other  hand,  in  so  far  as  it  does  not  aim  at  the 
exceptional  achievements  of  the  highest  scholar- 
ship, is  almost  wholly  in  Germany  of  a  character 
to  make  the  young  women  better  fitted  for  mar- 
riage. That  the  average  girl  attains  to  the 
fulfillment  of  her  hopes  only  in  marriage  is  a 
practical  dogma  which  finds  in  the  wide  masses 
there  no  doubters ;  and  that,  in  the  better  classes, 


WOMEN  137 

the  education  of  the  woman  was  for  a  long  time  so 
much  inferior  to  that  of  the  man  that  it  seriously 
interfered  with  a  deeper  intellectual  comradeship 
in  married  life,  also  cannot  be  denied.  The  suc- 
cessful efforts  to  raise  the  standard  of  female 
education,  and  to  bring  it  nearer  to  the  level  of 
that  of  young  men,  has  thus  the  tendency  to  give 
new  attractiveness  to  the  family  life,  and  to  make 
the  girl  more  marriageable.  In  the  atmosphere  of 
the  present  German  social  views, —  others  may  call 
them  prejudices,  —  these  efforts  do  not  contain 
the  least  factor  that  operates  against  the  crystal- 
lization of  households.  The  more  the  horizon  of 
the  man  widens  with  the  new  wealth  and  expan- 
sion of  the  modern  Germany,  the  more  this  ena- 
bles the  girl,  in  the  struggle  for  married  existence, 
to  bring  into  the  home  a  richer  intellectual  life, 
for  which  the  need  was  less  felt  in  the  more  idyllic 
and  provincial  German  homes  of  the  past  genera- 
tion. Finally,  the  increased  opportunities  for 
German  women  to  earn  their  own  living  make  not 
at  all  in  the  Fatherland  against  the  establishment 
of  the  home.  These  opportunities  lift,  indeed, 
from  many  homes  the  burdens  of  misery,  and 
make  many  empty  and  wasted  lives  useful ;  but, 
under  the  existing  conditions  of  public  opinion, 
there  is  no  fear  that  they  will  ever  have  any 
chances  as  "substitutes  for  marriage.  They  re- 


138  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

main,  for  the  large  masses,  necessarily  the  second 
best  choice ;  a  question,  on  the  whole,  merely  for 
those  who  have  had  no  chance  to  marry,  or  who 
are  afraid  that  they  will  not  marry,  or  who  hope 
that  it  will  somehow  help  them  to  marry.  In  Ger- 
many, where  the  female  sex  outnumbers  the  male 
in  such  a  high  degree,  and  where,  besides,  about 
ten  per  cent  of  the  men  prefer  to  stay  in  their 
'bachelor  quarters,  a  million  women  have  to  seek 
other  spheres  than  that  of  the  wife  ;  but  no  aver- 
age German  girl  desires  to  be  one  of  that  million, 
even  did  the  new  opportunities  that  are  constantly 
opening  up  offer  a  little  better  salary  than  is  the 
case  to-day.  And,  finally,  does  any  one  who  has 
obtained  even  a  glimpse  of  German  civilization 
need  any  further  proof  that  the  whole  public 
culture  there  is  stamped  by  man's  mind?  No 
reasonable  German  considers  the  function  of  wo- 
man in  the  social  organism  less  important  or  less 
noble  than  that  of  man,  but  the  public  questions 
he  wishes  to  have  settled  by  men.  Man  sets  the 
standard  in  every  public  discussion,  for  politics  and 
civil  life,  for  science  and  scholarship,  for  educa- 
tion and  religion,  for  law  and  medicine,  for  com- 
merce and  industry,  and  even  for  art  and  litera- 
ture. Women  are  faithful  helpers  there  in  some 
lines, —  they  assist  and  disseminate,  and  in  art  and 
literature  their  work  may  reach  the  highest  level ; 


WOMEN  130 

but  the  landmarks  for  every  development  are  set 
by  men,  and  all  this  will  outlast  even  the  most 
energetic  movements  for  the  higher  education  of 
woman,  unless  the  whole  structure  of  German 
ideals  becomes  disorganized. 

II 

In  both  respects,  in  relation  to  the  home  and  in 
relation  to  the  standards  of  public  culture,  the 
movements  in  the  interest  of  women  have  in 
America  exactly  the  opposite  tendency  from  those 
in  Germany ;  even  the  same  facts  have,  under  the 
different  social  conditions,  an  absolutely  different 
meaning :  the  whole  situation  here  militates  against 
the  home  and  against  the  masculine  control  of 
higher  culture,  and  seems  to  me,  therefore,  antag- 
onistic to  the  health  of  the  nation.  I  shall  con- 
sider first  the  influence  on  the  home.  I  am  not  so 
unfair  as  to  deduce  my  conclusions  from  the  radi- 
cal speeches  of  ill-balanced  reformers,  or  from  the 
experimental  extravagances  of  social  iconoclasts ; 
I  do  not  speak  of  those  who  want  to  see  the  chil- 
dren brought  up  in  government  institutions  from 
the  first  days  of  life,  or  of  those  who  consider 
marriage  as  the  only  surviving  slavery.  No ;  I 
do  not  think  of  dreams  and  revolutions ;  I  have 
the  actual,  present  situation  in  mind,  the  facts  as 
they  are  welcomed  by  the  conservative  population. 


140  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

And  yet,  with  this  alone  in  mind,  I  feel  convinced 
that  serious  forces  are  at  work  to  undermine  the 
home,  and  to  antagonize  the  formation  of  f amilies. 
Of  course  I  will  not  warm  up  the  old-fashioned 
argument,  which  is  repeated  so  often  in  Europe, 
that  the  higher  learning  makes  a  girl  awkward 
and  ill-mannered,  and  that  the  man  will  never  be 
drawn  to  such  a  bluestocking :  I  take  for  granted 
that  no  American  girl  loses  in  attractiveness  by 
passing  through  a  college,  or  through  other 
forms  of  the  higher  and  the  highest  education. 
But  we  have  only  to  look  at  the  case  from  the 
other  side,  and  we  shall  find  ourselves  at  once  at 
the  true  source  of  the  calamity.  The  woman  has 
not  become  less  attractive  as  regards  marriage ; 
but  has  not  marriage  become  less  attractive  to  the 
woman  ?  and  long  before  the  freshman  year  did 
not  the  outer  influences  begin  to  impel  in  that 
direction  ?  does  it  not  begin  in  every  country 
school  where  the  girls  sit  on  the  same  bench  with 
the  boys,  and  discover,  a  long,  long  time  too 
early,  how  stupid  those  boys  are  ?  Coeducation, 
on  the  whole  unknown  in  Germany,  has  many 
desirable  features,  —  it  strengthens  the  girls ;  it 
refines  the  boys ;  it  creates  a  comradeship  be- 
tween the  two  sexes  which  decreases  sexual  ten- 
sion in  the  years  of  development ;  but  these  fac- 
tors make,  at  the  same  time,  for  an  indifference 


WOMEN  141 

toward  the  other  sex,  toward  a  disillusionism, 
which  must  show  in  the  end.  The  average  Ger- 
man girl  thinks,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  that  she  will 
marry  any  one  who  will  not  make  her  unhappy  ; 
the  ideal  German  girl  thinks  that  she  will  marry 
only  the  man  who  will  certainly  make  her  happy; 
the  ideal  American  girl  thinks  that  she  can  marry 
only  the  man  without  whom  she  will  be  unhappy ; 
and  the  average  American  girl  approaches  this 
standpoint  with  an  alarming  rapidity.  Now,  is 
not  the  last  a  much  more  ideal  point  of  view  ? 
does  it  not  indicate  a  much  nobler  type  of  woman, 
—  the  one  who  will  have  no  marriage  but  the 
most  ideal  one,  as  compared  with  the  other,  who 
in  a  romantic  desire  for  marriage  takes  the  first 
man  who  asks  her  ?  But  in  this  connection,  I 
do  not  wish  to  approve  or  to  criticise ;  we  may  post- 
pone that  until  we  have  gathered  a  few  more  facts 
and  motives.  Coeducation  is  only  one  ;  a  whole 
corona  of  motives  surrounds  it. 

Coeducation  means  only  equality ;  but  the  so- 
called  higher  education  for  girls  means,  under 
the  conditions  of  the  American  life  of  to-day,  de- 
cidedly not  the  equality,  but  the  superiority  of 
women.  In  Germany,  even  the  best  educated 
woman  —  with  the  exception  once  more  of  the 
few  rare  and  ambitious  scholars  —  feels  her  edu- 
cation inferior  to  that  of  the  young  man  of  the 


142  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

same  set,  and  thus  inferior  to  the  mental  training 
of  her  probable  husband.  The  foundations  of 
his  knowledge  lie  deeper,  and  the  whole  structure 
is  built  up  in  a  more  systematic  way.  This  is 
true  of  every  one  who  has  passed  through  a 
gymnasium,  and  how  much  more  is  it  true  of 
those  who  have  gone  through  the  university  ! 
Law,  medicine,  divinity,  engineering,  and  the 
academic  studies  of  the  prospective  teacher  are  in 
Germany  all  based  essentially  upon  a  scholarly 
training,  and  are  thus,  first  of  all,  factors  of  gen- 
eral education,  —  powers  to  widen  the  horizon  of 
the  intellect.  All  this  is  less  true  in  America :  the 
lawyer,  the  physician,  the  teacher,  the  engineer, 
obtain  excellent  preparation  for  the  profession : 
but  in  a  lower  degree  his  studies  continue  his 
general  culture  and  education ;  and  the  elective 
system  allows  him  to  anticipate  the  professional 
training  even  in  college.  And,  on  the  other  side, 
as  for  the  business  man  who  may  have  gone 
through  college  with  a  general  education  in  view 
—  how  much,  or,  better,  how  little  of  his  culture 
can  be  kept  alive  ?  Commerce  and  industry, 
finance  and  politics  absorb  him,  and  the  beautiful 
college  time  becomes  a  dream;  the  intellectual 
energies,  the  factors  of  general  culture,  become 
rusty  from  disuse ;  while  she,  the  fortunate  col- 
lege girl,  remains  in  that  atmosphere  of  mental 


WOMEN  143 

interests  and  inspiration,  where  the  power  she  has 
gained  remains  fresh  through  contact  with  books. 
The  men  read  newspapers,  and,  after  a  while, 
just  when  the  time  for  marriage  approaches,  she 
is  his  superior,  through  and  through,  in  intellec- 
tual refinement  and  spiritual  standards.  And  all 
this  we  claim  in  the  case  of  the  man  who  has  had 
a  college  education ;  but  the  probability  is  very 
great  that  he  has  not  had  even  that.  The  result 
is  a  marriage  in  which  the  woman  looks  down 
upon  the  culture  of  her  husband ;  and,  as  the  girl 
instinctively  feels  that  it  is  torture  to  be  the  wife 
of  a  man  whom  she  does  not  respect,  she  hesi- 
tates, and  waits,  and  shrinks  before  the  thought 
of  entering  upon  a  union  that  has  so  few  charms. 
And  can  we  overlook  another  side  of  the  de- 
lightful college  time  ?  No  noise  of  the  bustling 
world  disturbed  the  peace  of  the  college  campus ; 
no  social  distinctions  influenced  the  ideal  balance 
of  moral  and  intellectual  and  aesthetic  energies : 
it  was  an  artificial  world  in  which  our  young 
friends  lived  during  the  most  beautiful  years  of 
their  lives.  Can  we  be  surprised  that  they  instinc- 
tively desire  to  live  on  in  this  peculiar  setting 
of  the  stage,  with  all  its  Bengal  lights  and  its 
self-centred  interests  ?  They  feel  almost  uncon- 
sciously that  all  this  changes  when  they  marry, 
when  they  are  mistresses  of  a  household,  —  a  sit- 


144  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

uation  which,  perhaps,  means  narrowness  and 
social  limitation.  They  feel  that  it  would  be  like 
an  awakening  from  a  lofty  dream.  There  is  no 
need  to  awake  ;  the  life  in  the  artificial  setting  of 
remote  ideals  can  be  continued,  if  they  attach 
themselves,  not  to  a  husband  and  children,  but  to 
clubs  and  committees,  to  higher  institutions  and 
charity  work,  to  art  and  literature ;  if  they  re- 
main thus  in  a  world  where  everything  is  so  much 
more  ideal  than  in  that  ungainly  one  in  which 
children  may  have  the  whooping-cough. 

Of  course  all  these  are  not  motives  that  pro- 
hibit marriage  ;  they  may  not  even,  in  any  individ- 
ual case,  work  as  conscious  considerations ;  they 
are  only  subconscious  energies,  which  show  their 
effects  merely  if  you  consider  the  large  groups  ; 
they  are  the  little  forces,  the  accumulation  of 
which  pushes  the  balance  of  motives  perhaps  so 
little  that  they  remain  unnoticed  by  the  girl  who 
is  undecided  whether  to  accept  him;  and  yet  they 
are  efficient. 

The  college  studies  do  not  merely  widen  the 
horizon  ;  they  give  to  many  a  student  a  concrete 
scholarly  interest,  and  that  is,  of  course,  still  truer 
of  the  professional  training.  The  woman  who 
studies  medicine  or  natural  science,  music  or 
painting,  perhaps  even  law  or  divinity,  can  we 
affront  her  with  the  suggestion,  which  would  be 


WOMEN  145 

an  insult  to  the  man,  that  all  her  work  is  so  su- 
perficial that  she  will  not  care  for  its  continuation 
as  soon  as  she  undertakes  the  duties  of  a  married 
woman?  Or  ought  we  to  imply  that  she  is  so 
conceited  as  to  believe  that  she  is  able  to  do  what 
no  man  would  dare  hope  for  himself  ;  that  is,  to 
combine  the  professional  duties  of  the  man  with 
the  not  less  complex  duties  of  the  woman  ?  She 
knows  that  the  intensity  of  her  special  interest 
must  suffer ;  that  her  work  must  become  a  super- 
ficial side-interest;  that  she  has  for  it  but  rare 
leisure  hours ;  and  no  one  can  blame  her,  how- 
ever much  she  may  love  her  own  home,  for  loving 
still  more  the  fascinating  work  for  which  she  was 
trained. 

All  these  tendencies  are  now  psychologically 
reinforced  by  other  factors  which  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  higher  education  as  such,  but  are 
characteristic  of  the  situation  of  the  woman  in 
general.  The  American  girl,  well  or  carelessly 
educated,  lives  in  the  midst  of  social  enjoyments, 
of  cultured  interests,  of  flirtations,  and  of  refine- 
ments —  what  has  she  to  hope  at  all  from  the 
change  which  marriage  brings  ?  Well,  the  one 
without  whom  her  heart  would  break  may  have 
appeared  —  there  is  then  no  use  of  further  discus- 
sion. But  it  is  more  probable  that  he  has  not 
appeared,  while  she,  in  the  meanwhile,  flirts  with 


146  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

half  a  dozen  men,  of  whom  one  is  so  congenial, 
and  another  such  a  brilliant  wit,  and  the  third 
such  a  promising  and  clever  fellow;  the  fourth 
is  rich,  and  the  fifth  she  has  known  since  her 
childhood,  and  the  sixth,  with  the  best  chances, 
is  such  a  dear,  stupid  little  thing !  What  has  she 
really  to  gain  from  a  revolution  of  her  individual 
fate  ?  Is  there  anything  open  to  her  which  was 
closed  so  far  ?  Between  the  social  freedom  of  a 
German  girl  and  a  German  wife  there  is  not  that 
gulf  which  separates  the  two  groups,  for  instance, 
in  France;  and  yet  the  change  from  the  single  to 
the  married  life  is  an  absolute  one.  Even  in  Ger- 
many, the  joys  of  girlhood  have  something  of  the 
provisional  in  their  character,  like  the  temporary 
filling  of  a  time  of  preparation  for  the  real  life. 
In  this  country  the  opposite  prevails.  Every  for- 
eigner sees  with  amazement  the  social  liberty  of 
the  young  girl,  and  admires  no  great  American 
invention  more  than  the  unique  system  of  the 
chaperon.  He  is  thus  hardly  surprised  that  the 
American  girl  almost  hides  the  fact  when  she  be- 
comes engaged  ;  she  has  to  give  up  so  many  fine 
things,  —  a  period  almost  of  resignation  has  to 
begin,  and  no  new,  untried  social  enjoyments  are 
in  view. 


WOMEN  147 

HI 

But  the  American  girl  has  not  only  no  new 
powers  to  expect ;  she  has  in  marriage  a  positive 
function  before  her,  which  she,  again  unlike  her 
European  sister,  considers,  on  the  whole,  a  bur- 
den, —  the  care  of  the  household.  I  do  not  mean 
that  the  German  woman  is  enraptured  with  de- 
light at  the  prospect  of  scrubbing  a  floor  ;  and  I 
know,  of  course,  how  many  American  women  are 
model  housekeepers,  how  the  farmers'  wives,  espe- 
cially, have  their  pride  in  it,  and  how  often  spoiled 
girls  heroically  undertake  housekeeping  with  nar- 
row means,  and  that,  too,  much  more  often  than 
in  Germany,  without  the  help  of  servants.  And 
yet,  there  remains  a  difference  of  general  attitude 
which  the  social  psychologist  cannot  overlook. 
The  whole  atmosphere  is  here  filled  with  the  con- 
scious or  unconscious  theory  that  housework  is 
somewhat  commonplace,  a  sort  of  necessary  evil 
which  ought  to  be  reduced  to  a  minimum.  I  do 
not  ask  whether  that  is  not  perhaps  correct;  I 
insist  only  that  this  feeling  is  much  stronger  here 
than  in  Germany,  and  that  it  must  thus  work 
against  domestic  life.  I  point  merely  to  a  few 
symptoms  of  this  phenomenon.  I  think,  for  in- 
stance, of  the  boarding-house  life  of  married  peo- 
ple, an  anti-domestic  custom  which  has  such  wide 


148  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

extension  in  America,  and  which  is  not  only  un- 
known, but  utterly  inconceivable  in  Germany. 
But  also  where  a  house  is  kept,  the  outsider  has 
the  feeling  that  the  young  wife  enjoys  her  home 
as  the  basis  of  family  life  and  as  a  social  back- 
ground, but  that  she  is  not  trained  to  enjoy  it 
as  a  field  of  domestic  activity.  The  German 
girl  anticipates,  not  as  the  smallest  enjoyment  of 
marriage,  the  possession  of  a  household  after  her 
own  domestic  tastes,  and  according  to  her  talent 
for  housework.  Her  whole  home  education  is  a 
preparation  for  this,  and  here  the  German  mo- 
ther finds  a  large  share  of  her  duties.  All  this 
may  be,  in  a  way,  an  unpractical  scheme ;  it  may 
be  wasted  energy ;  it  may  be  better  to  learn  those 
functions  in  a  more  mature  age,  in  which  the 
mind  approaches  them  more  theoretically;  but 
this  at  least  is  certain,  that  the  German  way  de- 
velops a  more  instinctive  inclination  toward  the 
home  life. 

The  general  American  tendency  to  consider 
housework  as  a  kind  of  necessary  evil,  which  as 
such  cannot  appeal  to  those  who  have  free  choice, 
is  not  less  evident  in  the  lower  strata  of  the  com- 
munity. The  conviction  of  every  American  girl 
that  it  is  dignified  to  work  in  the  mill,  but  undig- 
nified to  be  a  cook  in  any  other  family,  would 
never  have  reached  its  present  intensity  if  an 


WOMEN  149 

anti-domestic  feeling  were  not  in  the  background. 
Exactly  the  same  tendency  appears,  therefore, 
•when  work  for  the  parents  is  in  question.  The 
laborer's  daughter  has,  of  course,  not  such  a  com- 
plete theory  as  the  banker's  daughter ;  but  that 
it  is  dull  to  sit  in  the  kitchen  and  look  after  the 
little  sister,  she  too  knows.  In  consequence,  she 
also  rushes  to  the  outside  life  as  saleswoman,  as 
industrial  laborer,  as  office  worker  :  it  is  so  excit- 
ing and  interesting ;  it  is  the  richer  life.  The 
study  of  the  special  cases  shows,  of  course,  that 
there  are  innumerable  factors  involved ;  but  if 
we  seek  for  the  most  striking  features  of  woman's 
work,  here  and  abroad,  from  a  more  general  sur- 
vey of  the  subject,  it  would  seem  that  the  aim  of 
the  German  woman  is  to  further  the  interests  of 
the  household,  and  that  of  the  American  woman 
to  escape  from  the  household. 

Germany,  with  its  very  condensed  population, 
was  not  able  to  do  without  the  help  of  female 
muscle  in  running  the  economic  machine ;  Amer- 
ica, with  its  thin  population  and  its  great  natural 
richness,  does  not  really  need  this.  In  Germany 
almost  a  fourth  of  the  women  are  at  work;  in 
America  hardly  more  than  a  tenth.  Above  all, 
in  Germany  the  women  are  doing  the  hard  work, 
two  and  a  half  millions  being  engaged  in  agricul- 
ture against  half  a  million  here,  of  whom  the 


150  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

greater  part  are  negroes.  The  condition  of  the 
country  as  a  whole  does  not  demand  woman's 
aid ;  man's  labor  can  support  the  households  of 
this  country,  and,  economically,  the  country 
would  be  better  off  if  female  labor  were  almost 
entirely  suppressed,  both  by  prejudice  and  by  in- 
stitutions, since  it  lowers  the  wages  of  the  men, 
and  wastes  domestic  energies  which,  in  a  more 
intensified  effort,  would  save  the  more.  If,  in 
spite  of  these  economic  conditions,  woman's  labor, 
other  than  of  a  domestic  character,  has  become  a 
socially  necessary  factor,  it  must  have  been,  first 
of  all,  because  the  American  woman  feels  that  it 
is  easier  to  perform  the  labor  of  the  man  than  to 
make  an  increased  domestic  effort.  It  is  the  dis- 
inclination to  domestic  cares  that  has  slowly 
created  the  present  situation,  and  this  situation, 
itself,  with  its  resulting  distribution  of  wages,  has 
necessarily  the  effect  of  reinforcing  this  motive, 
and  of  pushing  the  woman  from  the  hearth  to 
the  mill  and  the  salesroom,  the  office  and  the 
classroom. 

I  have  mentioned  merely  mental  factors  which 
are  to  be  taken  into  account  in  their  subconscious 
cooperation  against  family  life ;  but  the  mental 
strain  and  excitement  to  which  young  girls  are 
subjected,  and  the  lack  of  social  restraint,  the 
constant  hurry,  and,  above  all,  the  intellectual 


WOMEN  151 

over-tension  must  influence  the  nervous  system, 
and  the  nervous  system  must  influence  the  whole 
organization  of  that  sex  which  nature,  after  all, 
has  made  the  weaker  one.  The  foreigner  cannot 
see  these  charming  American  girls  without  a  con- 
stant feeling  that  there  is  something  unhealthy  in 
their  nervous  make-up,  an  over-irritation,  a  patho- 
logical tension,  not  desirable  for  the  woman  who 
is  preparing  herself  to  be  the  mother  of  healthy 
children.  The  vital  statistics  tell  the  whole  story. 
The  census  of  1890  showed  that  there  were  born 
per  thousand  of  the  whole  population  in  Prussia 
36.6,  in  Massachusetts  21.5 ;  and  this  diminished 
birth  rate  is  still  much  lower  in  the  native  fami- 
lies here  than  in  those  of  foreign  birth,  —  the 
Irish  or  Swedish  or  German. 

If  we  will  consider  this  social  background,  this 
general  social  situation,  we  shall  perhaps  see  the 
problem  of  higher  education  from  another  point 
of  view ;  we  shall  begin  to  feel  that  under  these 
conditions,  which  in  themselves  work  so  clearly 
against  the  home,  it  must  be  doubly  dangerous 
to  reinforce  those  tendencies  in  woman's  higher 
education  which,  as  such,  impel  toward  a  celi- 
bacy of  spirit;  and  we  foreigners  ask  ourselves 
then  instinctively,  "  Is  the  woman  question  really 
solved  here  in  the  most  ideal  way  ?  " 

The  answer  which  every  one  of  my  American 


152  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

friends,  male  and  female,  has  ready  on  his  lips  is 
very  simple.  Can  you  deny,  they  ask,  that  the 
woman  whom  you  accuse  is  a  higher  type  of  hu- 
man being  than  any  other  ?  Do  you  want  her  to 
be  untrue  to  her  ideals,  to  seek  marriage  just  for 
marriage's  sake,  instead  of  waiting  for  the  man 
of  her  higher  hopes  ?  But  such  answers  do  not 
help  me  at  all.  It  may  be  that  I  am  willing  to 
concede  that  place  of  honor  to  the  individual  girl 
here,  in  comparison  with  the  girl  of  other  nations, 
but  the  real  problem  cannot  be  even  approached 
as  long  as  the  individual  is  in  question.  Here 
lies  the  point  where,  according  to  German  con- 
victions, the  shortcomings  of  American  civiliza- 
tion arise :  to  the  American  mind  the  community 
is  a  multitude  of  individuals,  to  the  German 
mind  it  is  above  all  a  unity.  The  American  sees 
in  the  state  an  accumulation  of  elements  of  which 
each  ought  to  be  as  perfect  as  possible  ;  the  Ger- 
man sees  in  it  an  organism  in  which  each  element 
ideally  fulfills  its  role,  only  in  so  far  as  it  adjusts 
itself  to  the  welfare  and  perfection  of  the  whole. 
It  is  the  atomistic  idea  of  the  community  as 
against  the  organic  one ;  the  naturalistic  aspect 
as  against  the  historical ;  the  state  as  a  sandhill 
where  every  grain  is  independent  of  every  other, 
against  the  state  as  a  living  being  where  every 
cell  is  in  internal  connection  with  every  other. 


WOMEN  153 

If  it  were  really  the  goal  of  civilization  to  inspire 
the  individuals  that  are  now  alive  with  as  high 
aims  as  possible,  the  American  system  would  be, 
at  least  with  regard  to  the  women,  an  ideal  one ; 
but  if,  to  mention  at  first  this  single  point,  such 
a  system  works  against  the  creation  of  substitutes 
for  the  individuals  who  have  outlived  their  life, 
and  thus  destroys  in  the  nation  the  power  of  re- 
juvenation, it  is  clear  that  the  goal  was  wrongly 
chosen,  and  that  the  standard  of  perfection  can- 
not be  made  dependent  merely  upon  personal 
achievement. 

Indeed,  not  the  slightest  reproach  attaches  to 
the  individual  girl  who  does  not  wish  to  marry 
because  her  education  and  her  social  surround- 
ings have  given  her  ideals  which  she  can  fulfill 
only  in  celibacy;  she  stands  individually  much 
higher  than  the  other,  who  with  the  same  views 
of  life  nevertheless  marries,  and  perhaps  becomes 
untrue  to  her  ideals,  sacrificing  her  lofty  scholarly 
ambitions  for  mere  idle  comfort.  But  the  re- 
proach must  be  directed  against  the  community 
which  gives  to  the  girls  an  education  and  an  in- 
spiration which  lead  to  such  a  conflict,  and  thus 
antagonize  the  natural  energies  of  a  healthy  na- 
tion. Such  a  system  is  made  according  to  an 
artificial  ideal;  there  is  in  the  world  of  experience 
no  individual  which  rests  and  reposes  in  or  on  it- 


164  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

self :  the  natural  unity  is  the  family.  Every  system 
of  public  spirit  which  in  its  final  outcome  raises  the 
individuals,  but  lowers  the  families,  is  antagonis- 
tic to  the  true  civilization  of  the  people,  and  its 
individualistic,  brilliant  achievements  are  dearly 
bought  illusions  of  success.  No  one  will  dare 
say  to  a  woman,  This  is  the  best,  but  you,  for 
one,  ought  to  be  satisfied  with  the  second  best. 
But  we  have  the  right  to  demand  from  the  com- 
munity that  the  woman  be  taught  to  consider,  as 
the  really  best  for  her,  what  is  in  the  highest  in- 
terests of  the  whole  of  society,  even  if  it  be  sec- 
ond best  for  the  individual. 

What  can  be  done  ?  Is  it  necessary  to  lower 
the  standard  of  woman's  education  in  all  levels  of 
society  in  order  to  reinforce  the  family  feeling  ? 
Must  we  throw  away  ah"  that  is  achieved  for  the 
self-preservation  of  the  race  ?  or  is  there  possibly 
a  way  to  maintain  this  glorious  individual  per- 
fection, and  yet  to  serve  the  purposes  of  the  or- 
ganic community?  But  the  answer  to  this  prac- 
tical question  may  be  postponed  until  we  have 
considered,  more  briefly,  the  other  factor  to  which 
I  have  already  referred.  I  affirmed  that  in  Ger- 
many all  the  movements  in  the  field  of  the  wo- 
man question  are  not  only  in  harmony  with,  and  in 
the  interest  of,  the  family,  but  that,  above  all,  the 
whole  public  life  bears,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the 


WOMEN  155 

stamp  of  the  man.  That  is,  in  my  opinion,  the 
second  great  difference.  The  American  system 
injures  the  national  organism,  not  only  because 
it  antagonizes  the  family  lif e,  and  thus  diminishes 
the  chances  for  the  future  bearers  of  the  national 
civilization,  but  it  has,  secondly,  the  tendency  to 
feminize  the  whole  higher  culture,  and  thus  to  in- 
jure the  national  civilization  itself. 

IV 

If  I  speak  of  public  life  here,  I  do  not  mean 
politics  in  the  technical  sense.  The  arguments 
for  and  against  the  participation  of  women  in 
politics,  the  reasons  for  and  against  woman  suf- 
frage,, are  certainly  of  a  peculiar  kind ;  I  have 
often  listened  to  both  sides  in  these  discussions, 
and  have  always,  as  long  as  one  side  was  pleading 
its  cause,  felt  strongly  in  favor  of  the  other  side. 
If  I  am,  on  the  whole,  opposed  to  woman  suffrage, 
it  is  because  it  belongs  to  those  factors  which  we 
have  discussed  :  it  would  help  to  draw  the  inter- 
ests of  individual  women  away  from  domestic  life. 
But  I  do  not  think  that  it  would  have  a  serious 
bearing  on  that  point  which  we  have  now  to  con- 
sider, the  effemination  of  public  life.  Politics 
would  certainly  be  influenced  as  to  its  character 
if  woman  suffrage  existed  everywhere,  —  it  would, 
in  some  ways,  probably  suffer  through  hysterical 


156  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

sentimentality,  illogical  impulses,  and  the  lack  o£ 
consistent  obedience  to  abstract  law ;  but  it  would 
probably  be,  on  the  other  hand,  in  many  respects 
ennobled  and  moralized,  softened  and  elevated. 
There  would  be,  on  the  whole,  no  serious  disad- 
vantage to  be  feared  for  political  life  itself,  be- 
cause the  men  would  always  remain  the  backbone 
of  the  political  parties.  Politics  in  America  so 
immediately  and  directly  penetrates  man's  whole 
welfare,  his  commerce  and  industry,  his  income 
and  his  expenses,  his  rights  and  his  duty,  that 
there  is  no  danger  that  he  would  ever  allow  the 
political  life  to  pass  from  his  hands  into  those  of 
the  woman ;  a  real  effeminizing  of  political  life  is 
thus  no  probable  danger.  Of  course,  so  long  as 
only  four  of  the  less  developed  States  of  the 
Union  have  introduced  woman  suffrage,  the  ques- 
tion is  of  no  practical  importance. 

The  public  life  that  I  have  in  mind  is  the  pub- 
lic expression  of  the  ideal  energies,  the  striving 
for  truth  and  beauty,  for  morality  and  religion, 
for  education  and  social  reform,  and  their  embod- 
iment, not  in  the  home,  but  in  the  public  con- 
sciousness. In  Germany  no  one  of  these  func- 
tions of  public  life  is  without  the  support  and 
ennobling  influence  of  active  women,  but  decid- 
edly the  real  bulk  of  the  work  is  done  by  men  ; 
they  alone  give  to  it  character  and  direction,  and 


WOMEN  157 

their  controlling  influence  gives  to  this  whole 
manifoldness  of  national  aims  its  strenuousness 
and  unity ;  to  carry  these  into  the  millions  of 
homes  and  to  make  them  living  factors  in  the 
family,  is  the  great  task  of  the  women  there. 
Here,  on  the  other  hand,  the  women  are  the  real 
supporters  of  the  ideal  endeavors :  in  not  a  few 
fields,  their  influence  is  the  decisive  one ;  in  all 
fields,  this  influence  is  felt,  and  the  whole  system 
tends  ever  more  and  more  to  push  the  men  out 
and  the  women  in.  Theatre  managers  claim  that 
eighty-five  per  cent,  of  their  patrons  are  women. 
No  one  can  doubt  that  the  same  percentage  would 
hold  for  those  who  attend  art  exhibitions,  and 
even  for  those  who  read  magazines  and  literary 
works  in  general.  And  we  might  as  well  con- 
tinue with  the  same  somewhat  arbitrary  figure : 
can  we  deny  that  there  are  about  eighty-five  per 
cent  of  women  among  those  who  attend  public 
lectures,  or  who  go  to  concerts,  among  those  who 
look  after  public  charities  and  the  work  of  the 
churches  ?  I  do  not  remember  ever  to  have  been 
in  a  German  art  exhibition  where  at  least  half  of 
those  present  were  not  men,  but  I  do  remember 
art  exhibitions  in  Boston,  New  York,  and  Chicago 
where  according  to  my  actual  count  the  men  in 
the  hall  were  less  than  five  per  cent  of  those  pre- 
sent. As  a  matter  of  course,  the  patron  deter- 


158  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

mines  the  direction  which  the  development  will 
take.  As  the  political  reader  is  more  responsible 
for  the  yellow  press  than  is  the  editor,  so  all  the 
non-political  functions  of  public  life  must  slowly 
take,  under  these  conditions,  the  stamp  of  the 
feminine  taste  and  type,  which  must  have  again 
the  further  effect  of  repelling  man  from  it  more 
and  more.  The  result  is  an  effemination  of  the 
higher  culture,  which  is  antagonistic  to  the  devel- 
opment of  a  really  representative  national  civiliza- 
tion, and  which  is  not  less  unsound  and  onesided 
than  the  opposite  extreme  of  certain  Oriental  na- 
tions, where  the  whole  culture  is  man's  work,  and 
the  woman  a  slave  in  the  harem. 

The  woman,  and  sometimes  even  the  indolent 
man  who  wants  to  get  rid  of  the  responsibility  of 
something  he  does  not  care  about,  says  simply 
that  this  is  all  right.  As  the  facts  show  —  they 
argue  —  that  the  woman  is  not  inferior  in  intel- 
lectual and  aesthetic  energies,  not  inferior  in  ear- 
nestness and  enthusiasm,  why  not  intrust  her  with 
the  national  culture,  why  not  give  her  full  charge 
of  art  and  literature,  education  and  science,  moral- 
ity and  religion  —  man  has  a  sufficient  number  of 
other  things  to  do.  But  it  is  simply  not  true, 
and  cannot  be  made  true  by  any  dialectics,  that 
the  minds  of  man  and  woman  are  equal,  and  can 
be  substituted  the  one  for  the  other,  without 


WOMEN  159 

changing  the  entire  character  of  the  mental  pro- 
duct. It  is  not  true  that  men  and  women  can  do 
the  same  work  in  every  line.  Earnestness  cer- 
tainly the  women  have.  However  large  the  num- 
ber of  those  who  may  meet  their  public  duties  in 
a  spirit  of  sport  or  amusement  or  ennui,  the  ma- 
jority take  these  duties  seriously ;  and  the  college 
girl  especially  comes  home  with  a  large  amount 
of  earnestness  in  the  cause  of  reform  and  of  the 
higher  functions  of  the  national  life.  The  only 
misfortune  is  that  earnestness  alone  is  not  physi- 
cal energy,  that  good  will  is  not  force,  that  devo- 
tion is  not  power.  But  her  lack  of  physical 
power  and  strength  would  be  less  dangerous  to 
the  undertaking  if  her  intellectual  ability  were 
equal  to  that  of  the  man.  But  here  the  social 
psychologist  can  feel  no  shadow  of  a  doubt  that 
neither  coeducation  nor  the  equality  of  opportu- 
nities has  done  anything  to  eliminate  those  char- 
acteristic features  of  the  female  mind  which  are 
well  known  the  world  over,  and  which  it  is  our 
blessing  not  to  have  lost.  The  laws  of  nature 
are  stronger  than  the  theories  of  men. 

To  express  the  matter  in  a  psychological  for- 
mula, on  which  the  observations  of  all  times  and  all 
nations  have  agreed  :  in  the  female  mind  the  con- 
tents of  consciousness  have  the  tendency  to  fuse 
into  a  unity,  while  they  remain  separated  in  the 


160  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

man's  mind.  Both  tendencies  have  their  merits 
and  their  defects ;  hut,  above  all,  they  are  differ- 
ent, and  make  women  superior  in  some  functions, 
and  man  superior  in  some  others.  The  immediate 
outcome  of  that  feminine  mental  type  is  woman's 
tact  and  aesthetic  feeling,  her  instinctive  insight, 
her  enthusiasm,  her  sympathy,  her  natural  wis- 
dom and  morality ;  but,  on  the  other  side,  also, 
her  lack  of  clearness  and  logical  consistency,  her 
tendency  to  hasty  generalization,  her  mixing  of 
principles,  her  undervaluation  of  the  abstract  and 
of  the  absent,  her  lack  of  deliberation,  her  readi- 
ness to  follow  her  feelings  and  emotions.  Even 
these  defects  can  beautify  the  private  life,  can 
make  our  social  surroundings  attractive,  and 
soften  and  complete  the  strenuous,  earnest,  and 
consistent  public  activity  of  the  man ;  but  they 
do  not  give  the  power  to  meet  these  public  du- 
ties without  man's  harder  logic.  If  the  whole 
national  civilization  should  receive  the  feminine 
stamp,  it  would  become  powerless  and  without 
decisive  influence  on  the  world's  progress. 

On  the  surface,  it  seems  otherwise.  Every  one 
thinks  at  once  of  some  most  talented  women, 
whose  training  in  strenuous  thought  is  not  infe- 
rior to  that  of  men,  and  every  one  knows  that 
our  female  students  are  as  good  scholars  as  the 
male  ones.  Those  few  exceptions  I  need  not  to 


WOMEN  161 

discuss  here,  —  the  genius  is  sui  generis  ;  but  the 
case  of  the  female  university  students  does  not 
at  all  suggest  to  me  a  belief  in  their  intellectual 
equality  with  men.  Certainly  the  average  female 
student  ranks  as  a  pupil  equal  to  the  young  man, 
but  that  does  not  exclude  the  fact  that  her 
achievements  and  his  are  profoundly  different ; 
she  is  more  studious,  and  thus  balances  certain 
undeniable  shortcomings,  and  the  subjects  in 
which  she  excels  are  other  than  those  in  which 
he  is  most  interested.  Above  all,  —  and  here  I 
touch  an  important  point  too  much  neglected,  — 
the  difference  between  the  students  appears  rela- 
tively small  here,  because  the  historic  develop- 
ment of  the  American  college  has  brought  it 
about  that  the  whole  higher  study  bears  far  too 
much  the  type  of  the  feminine  attitude  towards 
scholarship ;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  the  schol- 
arly outcome  has  so  far  been  on  the  whole  unsat- 
isfactory. In  Germany,  the  university  professors 
who  are  opposed  to  the  admission  of  women  to 
the  university  take  for  granted  that  the  women 
will  be  industrious  and  good  pupils,  but  insist 
that  they  will  lower  the  standard  of  the  really 
scholarly  work,  because  they  will  take,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  feminine  mind,  a  passive,  receptive, 
uncritical  attitude  toward  knowledge,  while  the 
whole  importance  of  German  scholarly  life  lies  in 


162  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

its  active  criticism,  its  strength  of  research  and 
inquiry.  All  that  the  German  professors  now 
fear  from  the  intrusion  of  women  was  precisely 
the  habitual,  characteristic  weakness  of  the  Amer- 
ican college  until  a  decade  or  two  ago.  These 
colleges  were  excellent  as  places  for  the  distribu- 
tion of  knowledge,  but  undeveloped  as  places  of 
research ;  they  were  controlled  by  a  passive  belief 
in  intellectual  authorities,  but  little  prepared  to 
advance  the  knowledge  of  the  world ;  in  short, 
they  took  the  receptive,  feminine  attitude  —  no 
wonder  that  the  women  could  do  as  well  as  the 
men.  But  in  recent  time  the  American  univer- 
sity strives  with  vigorous  efforts  toward  the  real- 
ization of  the  higher  ideal ;  the  test  of  the  ques- 
tion whether  the  dogmatic  mind  of  the  average 
woman  will  prove  equal  to  that  of  the  average 
man,  in  a  place  controlled  by  a  spirit  of  critical 
research,  has  simply  not  been  made  so  far.  If  I 
except  the  few  rare  talents,  which  have  been  left 
out  of  our  discussion,  since  they  do  not  require 
that  systems  be  adjusted  to  them,  I  cannot  say 
that  I  have  gained  the  impression  that  the  spirit 
of  research  would  be  safe  in  the  hands  of  the 
woman.  But  what  a  calamity  for  the  country 
if  this  great  epoch  in  the  life  of  the  universi- 
ties were  ruined  by  any  concessions  to  the  femi- 
nine type  of  thinking  !  The  nearer  America  ap- 


WOMEN  163 

preaches  a  state  of  university  work  that  corre- 
sponds to  the  highest  achievements  of  European 
universities,  the  more  it  develops  real  universities 
beyond  the  collegiate  institutions  for  receptive 
study,  the  more  the  equality  of  the  two  sexes 
must  disappear  in  them,  —  the  more  must  they 
become,  like  the  European  institutions,  places  for 
men,  where  only  the  exceptional  women  of  special 
talent  can  be  welcomed,  while  the  average  woman 
must  attend  the  woman's  college  with  its  receptive 
scholarship.  If  we  keep  up  an  artificial  equality 
through  the  higher  development  of  the  present 
day,  American  intellectual  work  will  be  kept 
down  by  the  women,  and  will  never  become  a 
world  power. 

How  differently,  when  compared  with  that  of 
men  of  the  same  class,  the  female  mind  works,  we 
see  daily  around  us  when  we  turn  our  eyes  from 
the  educated  level  down  toward  the  half -educated 
multitude.  Here  we  are  confronted  with  the  wo- 
man who  antagonizes  serious  medicine  through 
her  belief  in  patent  medicines  and  quackery,  the 
woman  who  undermines  moral  philosophy  through 
her  rushing  into  spiritualism  and  every  supersti- 
tion of  the  day,  the  woman  who  injures  the  pro- 
gress of  thought  and  reform  by  running  with 
hysterical  zeal  after  every  new  fad  and  fashion 
introduced  with  a  catchy  phrase.  A  lack  of  re- 


164  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

spect  for  really  strenuous  thought  characterizes 
woman  in  general.  Dilettantism  is  the  key-note. 
The  half-educated  man  is  much  more  inclined  to 
show  an  instinctive  respect  for  trained  thought, 
and  to  abstain  from  opinions  where  he  is  ignorant. 
But  the  half-educated  woman  cannot  discriminate 
between  the  superficial  and  the  profound,  and, 
without  the  slightest  hesitation,  she  effuses,  like  a 
bit  of  gossip,  her  views  on  Greek  art  or  on  Dar- 
winism or  on  the  human  soul,  between  two  spoon- 
fuls of  ice-cream.  Even  that  is  almost  refresh- 
ing as  a  softening  supplement  to  the  manly  work 
of  civilization,  but  it  would  be  a  misfortune  if 
such  a  spirit  were  to  gain  the  controlling  influence. 
That  such  effemination  makes  alarming  pro- 
gress is  quickly  seen  if  we  watch  the  develop- 
ment of  the  teacher's  profession.  I  have  seldom 
the  honor  of  agreeing  with  the  pedagogical  schol- 
ars of  this  country,  but,  on  this  point,  it  seems  to 
me,  we  are  all  of  the  same  opinion :  the  disap- 
pearance of  the  man  from  the  classroom,  not  only 
of  the  lower  schools,  but  even  of  the  high  schools, 
is  distinctly  alarming.  The  primary  school  is  to- 
day absolutely  monopolized  by  woman  teachers, 
and  in  the  high  school  they  have  the  overwhelm- 
ing majority.  The  reason  for  this  is  clear  :  since 
the  woman  does  not  have  to  support  a  family, 
she  can  work  for  a  smaller  salary,  and  thus,  as  in 


WOMEN  165 

the  mills  the  men  tend  more  and  more  toward  the 
places  for  which  women  are  not  strong  enough,  in 
the  schools,  too,  female  competition  must,  if  no 
halt  is  called,  bring  down  salaries  to  a  point  from 
which  the  supporter  of  the  family  must  retreat. 
It  would  be,  of  course,  in  both  cases  better  if 
the  earnings  were  larger,  and  more  men  were  thus 
enabled  to  support  families,  while  in  the  school- 
room, as  in  the  mill,  the  female  competitor  brings 
the  earnings  down  to  a  point  where  the  man  is 
too  poor  to  marry  her,  —  a  most  regrettable  state 
of  affairs.  But  the  economic  side  is  here  not 
so  important  as  the  effect  on  civilization.  Even 
granting,  what  I  am  not  at  all  ready  to  grant, 
that  woman's  work,  preferred  because  it  is  cheaper 
to  the  community,  is  just  as  good  as  man's  work, 
can  it  be  without  danger  that  the  male  youth  of 
this  country,  up  to  the  eighteenth  year,  is  edu- 
cated by  unmarried  women  ?  Is  it  a  point  to  be 
discussed  at  all  that  "  nascent  manhood  requires 
for  right  development  manly  inspiration,  direction, 
and  control "  ?  Where  will  this  end  ?  That  very 
soon  no  male  school-teacher  of  good  quality  will 
survive  is  certain,  but  there  is  no  reason  to  ex- 
pect that  it  will  stop  there.  We  have  already 
to-day  more  than  sixty  per  cent  of  girls  among 
the  upper  high-school  classes,  and  this  dispropor- 
tion must  increase.  Must  we  not  expect  that  in 


166  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

the  same  way  in  which  the  last  thirty  years  have 
handed  the  teacher's  profession  over  to  the  wo- 
men, the  next  thirty  years  will  put  the  ministry, 
the  medical  calling,  and,  finally  the  bar,  also  into 
her  control  ?  To  say  that  this  is  not  to  be  feared 
because  it  has  never  happened  anywhere  before 
is  no  longer  an  argument,  because  this  develop- 
ment of  our  schools  is  also  new  in  the  history  of 
civilization.  There  was  never  before  a  nation 
that  gave  the  education  of  the  young  into  the 
hands  of  the  lowest  bidder. 


The  comic  papers  prophesy  alarming  results  for 
the  man  ;  while  the  woman  teaches  and  preaches 
and  argues  before  the  court,  he  will  have  to  do 
the  cooking,  mending,  and  nursing  at  home. 
That  is  absurd.  There  is  enough  room  for  the 
development  of  man  in  the  present  direction. 
Commerce  and  industry,  politics  and  war,  will  fur- 
nish no  lack  of  opportunities  for  the  employment 
of  all  his  energies ;  but  one  thing  is  certain  :  he 
will  be  a  stranger  to  the  higher  culture  of  the 
nation.  And  this  condition,  in  which  the  pro- 
fessional callings,  the  whole  influence  on  the  de- 
velopment of  the  younger  generation,  all  art  and 
science  and  morality  and  religion,  come  to  be 
moulded  and  stamped  by  women,  is  precisely  the 


WOMEN  167 

one  which  some  call  equality  of  the  sexes !  The 
truth  is  evident,  here  as  everywhere,  that  equality 
cannot  be  brought  about  artificially.  To  force 
equality  always  means  merely  shifting  the  inequal- 
ity from  one  region  to  another  ;  and  if  the  primary 
inequality  was  the  natural  one,  the  artificial  sub- 
stitute must  be  dangerous  if  it  be  more  than  a 
temporary  condition.  Nature  cannot  act  other- 
wise, because  nature  cannot  tolerate  real  equality. 
Equality  means  in  the  household  of  nature  a 
wasted  repetition  of  function ;  equality,  there- 
fore, represents  everywhere  the  lower  stage  of  the 
development,  and  has  to  go  over  into  differentia- 
tion of  functions.  Nature  cannot  be  dodged,  and 
the  growth  of  nations  cannot  escape  natural  laws. 
To  say  that  man  and  woman  must  be  equal  de- 
mands a  natural  correction  by  bringing  in  the 
differentiation  of  function  at  some  other  point : 
you  may  decree  equality  to-day,  but  nature  takes 
care  that  we  shall  have,  in  consequence,  a  new 
kind  of  inequality  to-morrow.  The  nation  has 
decreed  that  the  differences  of  sex  shall  be  ignored 
in  education  and  in  the  choice  of  callings,  and  the 
outcome  is  a  greater  inequality  than  in  any  other 
country,  an  inequality  in  which  men  are  turned 
out  of  the  realms  of  higher  culture. 

But   as   soon  as  we  take  the  point  of  view 
of  social  philosophy,  we  understand  at  once  the 


168  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

deeper  meaning  of  the  whole  phenomenon  and  its 
probable  development.  This  cry  for  equality, 
with  its  necessary  results  in  a  new  form  of  crass 
inequality,  then  manifests  itself  as  a  great  scheme 
of  nature  in  the  interests  of  the  conservation 
of  the  race,  in  keeping  with  the  special  condi- 
tions under  which  the  nation  has  received  its 
growth.  Under  the  ordinary  conditions,  the  ma- 
terial opening  and  settling  of  a  country  move 
parallel  with  the  development  of  the  inner  cul- 
ture, and  the  man  is  thus  able  to  meet  the  re- 
quirements of  this  twofold  public  task ;  he  gives 
his  energies  to  the  material  and  political  necessi- 
ties so  long  as  the  mental  and  spiritual  culture  is 
low,  and  in  proportion  as  he  is  freed  from  the 
rudimentary  needs  that  pertain  to  the  support  of 
the  nation,  he  turns  to  the  inner  culture,  that  of 
education  and  art,  and  so  on,  while  the  woman, 
at  every  stage,  cares  for  the  private  life  of  the  fam- 
ily. In  America,  this  normal  course  was  changed, 
because  the  material  opening  of  the  country,  the 
unfolding  of  its  natural  resources,  coincided  with 
the  possession  of  a  most  complex  inner  culture 
brought  over  from  Europe  ready-made,  not  grown 
of  the  soil.  Hence  a  new  division  of  labor  had 
to  be  discovered  to  meet  those  material  exigen- 
cies which  demanded  man's  full  energy  and  man's 
side-function,  the  work  of  the  higher  culture, 


WOMEN  169 

also.  This  side-function  had  to  be  assumed  by 
the  woman ;  she  had  to  care  for  the  inner  cul- 
ture of  the  nation,  that  the  arms  of  the  man  might 
be  free  for  the  more  immediate  work,  the  settling 
of  the  continent,  the  political  organization,  and 
the  development  of  the  national  wealth.  This 
was,  under  these  unusual  conditions,  the  only  way 
of  preserving  and  fostering  the  high  European 
culture  ;  if  women  had  not  temporarily  taken  this 
function  from  man,  it  would  have  been  wholly 
lost  in  the  wear  and  tear  of  the  commercial  and 
political  adolescence  of  the  nation.  It  was,  then, 
the  special  mission  of  the  American  woman  to 
become  the  bearer  of  the  higher,  inherited  culture 
of  the  nation  by  the  artificial  development  of  an 
intellectual  superiority  over  the  man. 

But  if  this  be  true,  it  is  clear  that  such  vicari- 
ous functioning  must  cease  as  soon  as  those  two 
peculiar  conditions  should  arise  which  manifestly 
exist  at  the  present  time.  The  first  of  these 
conditions  is  that  this  female  superiority  should 
reach  a  point  where  it  begins,  to  effeminate  the 
higher  culture,  and  where  it  becomes  antagonistic 
to  family  life ;  thus  positively  injuring  the  organ- 
ism of  the  race.  The  other  condition  is  that  the 
material  establishment  of  the  country  should  have 
attained  its  completion ;  the  ground  mastered,  the 
sources  of  national  wealth  sufficiently  developed 


170  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

to  allow  room  for  man's  effort  in  other  directions. 
No  doubt  this  condition  also  is  fulfilled  to-day, 
—  the  West  is  opened ;  the  whole  continent  is 
economically  subjugated ;  a  net  of  transportation 
covers  the  whole  land ;  wealth  abounds  in  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  families,  down  to  the  second  and 
third  generations,  to  insure  the  building  up  of  a 
leisure  class ;  and  the  time  has  come  when  the 
American  man  can  take  his  share,  like  the  Eu- 
ropean, in  the  spiritual  culture  of  his  country. 
If  the  American  man  will  but  turn  his  real  ener- 
gies to  the  world  of  spiritual  goods,  then  the  two 
great  evils  which  we  have  discussed  will  both  be 
cured  by  the  one  remedy,  and  at  one  time,  while 
the  woman  will  not  in  any  respect  be  the  loser. 
If  man  takes  the  part  that  belongs  to  him  in  the 
higher  culture,  this,  instead  of  being  emasculated, 
will  show  that  perfect  blending  of  human  ener- 
gies in  which  the  strength  of  the  man  will  be 
softened  by  pure  womanhood,  and,  at  the  same 
time,  the  woman,  who  will  feel  the  greater 
strength  in  the  man  of  equal  culture,  will  shrink 
no  longer  from  marriage,  and  will  feel  attracted 
by  that  truer  companionship  in  which  the  real 
labor  is  divided,  the  public  function  given  to  the 
man,  the  domestic  function  to  the  daughter  and 
sister,  to  the  wife  and  mother.  That  is  the  state 
at  which  we  aim  in  Germany ;  much  has  still  to 


WOMEN  171 

be  done  there  to  give  to  the  average  German  wo- 
man the  thorough  education  of  the  American ; 
but  that  will  soon  come.  In  any  case,  even  the 
best  training  of  the  woman  must  support  in  Ger- 
many the  family  idea,  and  the  man  will  continue 
to  be  the  mainstay  of  the  ideal  culture.  We  Ger- 
mans feel  sure  that  this  will  not  be  endangered, 
even  if  we  fully  imitate  the  splendid  college  life 
of  American  girls.  Therefore,  no  one  can  sug- 
gest that  woman's  education  in  this  country  ought 
to  take  any  steps  backward ;  all  the  glorious  op- 
portunities must  remain  open,  and  only  one  prac- 
tical change  must  come  in  response  to  the  urgent 
needs  of  our  period :  the  American  man  must 
raise  his  level  of  general  culture.  In  short,  the 
woman's  question  is  in  this  country,  as  ultimately 
perhaps  everywhere,  the  man's  question.  Reform 
the  man,  and  all  the  difficulties  disappear. 

We  know  that  in  Paradise,  Eve  followed  the 
seducing  voice  of  the  serpent,  and  ate  the  fruit 
from  the  tree  of  knowledge,  and  gave  of  it  unto 
Adam.  The  college-bred  Eve  has  no  smaller 
longing  for  the  apple  of  knowledge  ;  but  the  ser- 
pent has  become  modern,  and  his  advice  has 
grown  more  serpent-like  than  ever  :  "  Eat  of  the 
apple,  but  give  not  unto  Adam  thereof."  The 
Bible  tells  us  that  when  they  both  ate,  they  were 
cast  out  from  Paradise,  but  saved  the  race.  How- 


172  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

ever  it  may  be  with  the  modern  paradise,  the  race 
will  be  saved  only  on  the  condition  that  Adam 
receive  his  share  of  the  fruit.  Listen  not  to  the 
serpent,  but  divide  the  apple ! 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY 
I 

A  GERMAN  who  has  seen  the  world  and  tries  to 
make  his  thinking  free  from  the  chance  influences 
of  his  surroundings  may  easily  ask  himself  whether 
it  would  not  be  most  desirable  that  all  nations 
should  become  republican  democracies  after  the 
American  model.  If  he  does  not  ask  the  question 
himself,  he  is  sure  to  be  asked  it  by  an  American 
friend  who  happens  not  to  agree  with  the  last 
speech  of  the  German  Emperor,  and  who,  there- 
fore, takes  for  granted  that  an  educated  German, 
outside  of  the  reach  of  the  German  state-attorney, 
will  frankly  confess  that  monarchy  is  a  mediaeval 
relic  and  that  democracy  alone  is  life.  When  one 
of  my  friends  approached  me  the  other  day  with 
such  an  inquiry,  I  was  in  a  hurry,  and  my  answer 
had  to  be  short.  I  told  him,  first,  that  the  achieve- 
ments of  democratic  America  are  not  the  achieve- 
ments of  American  democracy ;  secondly,  that 
democracy  in  itself  has  as  many  bad  tendencies  as 
good  ones,  and  is  thus  not  better  than  aristocracy ; 


174  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

thirdly,  that  the  question  whether  democracy  or 
aristocracy  is  better  does  not  exist  to-day ;  fourthly, 
that  Germany  daily  becomes  more  democratic, 
•while  America  steadily  grows  aristocratic ;  fifthly, 
that  there  is  no  difference  between  the  two  nations 
anyway.  My  friend  insisted  that  my  argument 
stood  on  the  same  level  with  the  oath  of  the  woman 
who  was  accused  before  the  court  of  breaking  a 
pot  which  she  had  borrowed  from  her  neighbor, 
and  who  swore,  first,  that  the  pot  was  not  broken 
when  she  returned  it ;  secondly,  that  the  pot  was 
broken  when  she  borrowed  it ;  and,  thirdly,  that 
she  had  not  borrowed  the  pot.  Well,  that  may 
be ;  but  my  haste  alone  was  to  blame,  as  I  could 
not  explain  in  the  few  words  I  had  time  for  that  de- 
mocracy can  cover  very  different  tendencies.  Thus 
I  promised,  when  I  had  leisure,  to  disentangle  my 
twisted  argument,  and  to  illustrate,  perhaps  even 
to  establish  it.  The  following  remarks  are,  as  far 
as  possible,  a  f  ulfillment  of  my  promise,  and  they 
follow  exactly  the  order  of  the  argument. 

I  must  begin,  therefore,  with  the  inquiry 
whether  the  present  civilization  of  America  in  its 
good  and  glorious  features  is  to  be  considered  as 
evidence  in  favor  of  democracy  as  against  aristo- 
cracy, of  republican  institutions  as  against  mon- 
archical. 

The  eulogists  and  the  critics  of  American  de- 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  175 

mocracy,  nowadays,  often  make  their  enterprise 
quite  easy  by  praising  or  attacking  it  for  quali- 
ties which  certainly  belong  to  democratic  Amer- 
ica, but  which  are  not  characteristic  of  American 
democracy.  The  trouble,  of  course,  begins  at  the 
very  outset,  with  the  difficulty  of  defining  what 
democracy  really  is.  Democracy  is  equality ;  and 
yet  we  are  familiar  with  the  argument  of  those 
who  insist  that  equality  is  a  foreign  and  un-Amer- 
ican conception,  and  that  American  democracy  is 
not  equality,  but  liberty.  Democracy  is  govern- 
ment by  those  who  are  governed  ;  but  why,  then, 
no  woman  suffrage  in  America?  Democracy  is 
government  by  majorities ;  and  yet  a  thousand 
people  in  the  State  of  New  York  do  not  count, 
as  voters  for  the  Senate,  more  than  a  dozen  in 
Nevada,  and  even  the  President  may  be  chosen  by 
a  minority.  Democracy  means  universal  suffrage, 
and  yet  every  constitutional  monarchy  in  Europe 
is  based  on  universal  suffrage.  Democracy  is 
brotherhood,  but  those  who  know  Russia  assure 
us  that  there  is  no  more  brotherly  people  than 
that  of  the  Czar.  A  democracy  is  a  republic ; 
and  yet  we  hear  that  the  American  colony  was 
already  democratic  before  the  Revolution,  that 
England  is,  after  all,  to-day  a  democracy,  and 
that  France  is  pseudo-democratic  only. 

It  is  easy  to  praise  democracy  in  America  if  it 


176  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

is  contrasted  merely  with  the  demoralized  aristo- 
cracy of  the  Louis  Quatorze  period.  The  only 
defect  of  the  argument  is  that  such  an  aristocracy 
does  not  exist  anywhere  to-day,  and  that  every 
word  of  the  eulogy  thus  fits,  just  as  well,  any  other 
non-republican  country.  And  it  is  easy  to  de- 
preciate American  democracy  if  it  be  compared 
with  an  ideal  construction  of  public  life,  which  is 
nowhere  realized  under  the  most  complex  condi- 
tions of  modern  society.  The  criticism,  again, 
can  be  turned  against  any  other  country  where, 
under  different  forms,  the  defects  of  modern  cul- 
ture and  the  weaknesses  of  human  character  bring 
about  similar  evils.  It  happens  easily  that  the 
American  puts  into  the  ledger  of  democracy  too 
many  items  which  simply  belong  to  the  times  in 
which  we  live. 

The  unfairness  of  such  a  substitution  is  felt 
most  strongly  when  America  is  compared  with 
Germany.  Germany  has  become  in  the  literature 
of  democracy  the  most  convenient  object  of  de- 
monstration for  the  difference  between  the  New 
and  the  Old  World  system.  Comparison  with 
England  leads  too  quickly  to  the  sentiment  that 
the  monarchy  is  there  merely  decorative ;  com- 
parison with  France  is  dangerous,  since  France 
pretends  to  be  a  democracy  like  America ;  com- 
parison with  Russia  is  out  of  the  question,  partly 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  177 

because  Russian  life  is  so  little  known  in  America, 
and  partly  because  its  political  institutions  seem 
to  an  American  beneath  discussion.  Germany  re- 
mains thus  in  the  vast  literature  of  the  subject  al- 
ways the  one  easiest  to  point  to  among  the  leading 
nations.  The  popular  argument  runs  as  follows : 
America  has  all  these  fine  things ;  America  is  a 
democracy ;  Germany  is  not  a  democracy ;  poor 
Germany,  that  cannot  have  all  these  fine  things ! 
But  Germany  might  very  well  have  them,  because 
they  do  not  necessarily  pertain  to  a  democracy  as 
such.  It  is  thus,  perhaps,  natural  to  begin  a  study 
of  American  democracy  by  a  comparison  of  the 
achievements  usually  claimed  for  this  country  with 
those  of  the  German  Empire,  which,  as  Mr.  Brad- 
ford in  his  recent  large  work  on  "  The  Lesson  of 
Popular  Government,"  assures  us,  "  is  almost  as 
much  under  military  and  imperial  despotism  as 
three  centuries  ago." 

It  might  be  difficult  to  reach  a  general  agree- 
ment on  any  proposed  list  of  reasons  for  the  pride 
and  satisfaction  and  happiness  that  result  from 
the  public  life  of  this  wonderful  country,  but  I 
have  certainly  nowhere  found  in  the  literature  of 
the  subject  a  more  complete  enumeration  than  in 
the  noble  essays  of  Charles  W.  Eliot,  in  his  recent 
volume,  "American  Contributions  to  Civilization." 
If  I  understand  him  correctly,  President  Eliot  dis- 


178  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

tinguishes  ten  different  features  in  our  public  life, 
each  one  of  which  deserves  the  respect  and  the 
admiration  of  the  world.  Let  us  consider  these 
features  one  by  one,  as  compared  with  conditions 
in  Germany.  "  The  first  and  principal  contribu- 
tion," says  President  Eliot,  "  is  the  advance  made 
in  the  United  States,  not  in  theory  only,  but  in 
practice,  toward  the  abandonment  of  war  as  a 
means  of  settling  disputes  between  nations,  the 
substitution  of  discussion  and  arbitration,  and  the 
avoidance  of  armaments."  That  was  written  in 
1896.  But  it  is  to  the  credit  of  England  and 
not  to  that  of  America  that  the  Venezuela  conflict 
did  not  lead  to  war  in  that  same  year.  And 
since  those  days  we  have  gone  to  Cuba,  we  have 
gone  to  the  Philippines,  and,  worse  than  all,  we 
have  heard  through  the  whole  scale,  from  the 
editorials  of  the  yellow  press  to  the  orations  of 
leading  senators,  the  voice  of  that  aggressive 
temper  which  waits  for  an  opportunity  to  show 
American  superiority  to  the  world  by  battles  and 
not  by  arbitration.  Germany,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  now  kept  the  peace  for  thirty  years,  peace  in 
a  time  which  was  filled  to  overflowing  with  inter- 
national irritations,  peace  which  was  paid  for 
with  immense  expenditures,  a  peace  that  almost 
no  one  dared  to  hope  for,  and  which  was  cer- 
tainly not  a  product  of  chance,  but  the  result  of 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  179 

most  persistent  efforts  —  it  may  be  added  in  the 
same  breath,  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  government 
much  more  than  on  the  part  of  the  people,  since 
in  all  Europe  times  have  so  fully  changed  that 
princes  are  much  more  peaceably  inclined  than 
nations. 

"The  second  eminent  contribution  which  the 
United  States,"  according  to  President  Eliot, "  have 
made  to  civilization  is  their  thorough  acceptance, 
in  theory  and  in  practice,  of  the  widest  religious 
toleration."  "  The  constitutional  prohibition  of 
religious  tests  as  qualifications  for  office  has  given 
the  United  States  the  leadership  among  the  na- 
tions in  dissociating  theological  opinions  and 
political  rights."  But  again  we  must  ask,  is 
it  otherwise  in  Germany?  What  office  in  Ger- 
many is  dependent  upon  a  religious  test  ?  Just  as 
the  Protestant  population  of  Saxony  loves  its 
Catholic  king,  and  just  as  the  Catholic  population 
of  Southern  Baden  adores  the  Protestant  Grand 
Duke,  so  the  whole  public  and  political  life  of 
Germany  shows  a  peaceable  intermingling  of  all 
creeds,  exactly  as  in  America.  If  the  Americans, 
to  emphasize  the  contrast  with  Europe,  point  to 
the  religious  persecutions  of  the  Jews  in  Russia, 
we  have  to  consider  this  as  an  evidence  of  race 
antagonism ;  and  mob  violence  against  other  races 
is  certainly  not  unknown  in  large  parts  of  America. 


180  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

On  the  other  hand,  the  struggle  between  the  Ger- 
man government  and  the  ultramontane  Centrist 
party  ought  never  to  be  misconstrued  as  religious 
intolerance;  it  is  a  strictly  political  fight  for 
power.  But  religious  toleration  has  not  only  the 
political  aspect,  in  which  all  the  leading  nations 
are  to-day  on  the  same  footing,  but  also  a  social 
aspect ;  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  Germany 
is  not  superior  to  America  in  its  willingness  to 
accept  the  social  personality  without  any  intermed- 
dling into  the  particular  way  of  arranging  private 
relations  to  the  problems  of  eternity.  There  is 
endlessly  more  personal  gossiping  about  our  neigh- 
bor's religion  here  than  in  Germany.  In  smaller 
towns,  especially,  the  social  intolerance  in  religious 
matters  reaches  a  degree  utterly  unknown  in  con- 
tinental Europe.  The  American  Sunday  laws 
would  appear  to  Germans  as  an  intolerable  lack 
of  religious  freedom.  There  is  no  doubt  that 
even  an  avowed  atheist  would  find  his  path  much 
freer  in  Germany  than  here. 

A  third  characteristic  feature,  as  is  claimed,  of 
American  civilization  has  been  the  successful  de- 
velopment of  a  manhood  suffrage.  But  every 
one  knows  that  the  legislative  bodies  of  Germany 
are  products  of  universal  suffrage,  too,  and  that 
the  local  administration  is  a  highly  developed  self- 
government.  In  both  countries  universal  suffrage 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  181 

is  the  great  school  of  political  education,  the 
great  vehicle  for  the  feeling  of  responsibility  in 
the  masses,  the  means  of  disseminating  public 
interests ;  but  in  both  countries  it  needs  a  com- 
plex artificial  organization,  to  be  practically  man- 
ageable, and  above  all  it  needs  constitutional 
limitations  to  avoid  the  evident  dangers  and  evils. 
All  the  differences  have  to  do  merely  with  these 
forms  of  adjustment  and  means  of  warding 
off  the  dangers.  The  German  system  insures, 
through  the  instrumentality  of  the  hereditary 
monarchy,  those  advantages  which  the  founders 
of  the  American  Republic  secured  through  the 
many  conservative  features  of  the  American  form 
of  government,  where  especially  the  Senate,  per- 
haps not  as  it  is,  but  as  it  was  planned,  and  the 
prescribed  slowness  of  the  governmental  proced- 
ures, act  as  an  effective  restraint  upon  popular 
excitements.  If  democracy  be  understood  as  a 
form  of  government  which  represents  the  will 
and  energies  of  the  people,  the  German  and  the 
American  systems  are  equally  democratic,  and  it  is 
wrong  to  make  light  of  German  suffrage  because 
the  highest  executive,  as  representative  of  the 
national  will,  is  not  selected  by  a  majority  vote, 
but  by  the  universal,  spontaneous  loyalty  to  one 
who  stands  above  parties.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
is  not  less  unfair  when  English  authors  are  pleased 


182  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

to  call  the  constitutional  the  true  democracy,  and 
the  American  system  a  pseudo-democracy  only. 
But  so  much  may  be  said,  indeed,  —  that  the  Ger- 
man citizen,  when  he  goes  to  the  ballot-box,  re- 
ceives the  educational  influences  of  universal  suf- 
frage more  directly  than  his  American  colleague. 
There  is  no  machine,  there  is  no  "  boss,"  there  is 
no  two-party  system,  which  often  makes  the  choice 
merely  a  somewhat  demoralizing  decision  between 
two  evils,  or  demands  a  vote  on  issues  which  make 
no  appeal  to  the  personal  interests  or  intelligence 
of  the  voter.  The  large  number  of  parties  in 
Germany,  on  the  contrary,  lends  to  the  decision  a 
much  more  individual  character. 

A  fourth  point,  which  is  an  occasion  of  pride  to 
every  American,  is  "  that  property  has  never  been 
safer  under  any  form  of  government."  But  has 
any  one  ever  owned  a  pfennig  in  Germany  behind 
which  the  majesty  of  the  German  nation  did  not 
stand  ?  Certainly  it  is  not  otherwise  here,  but  it 
cannot  be  denied  that  Americans  themselves 
everywhere  reinforce  the  widespread  notion  that 
the  financially  weak  man  cannot  find  justice  in 
America  against  the  powerful  influences  of  rich 
corporations,  a  prejudice  which  has  taken  much 
stronger  form  in  Europe,  and  has  there  spread 
abroad  the  erroneous  opinion  that  the  American 
civil  court  is  a  seat  of  corruption.  How  much 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  183 

depends  in  such  questions  upon  the  point  of  view 
is  shown  by  the  interesting  experience  of  a  large 
association  founded  in  New  York  by  German- 
Americans.  This  association  gives  legal  aid  to 
immigrants,  and  has  in  this  way  been  widely  ben- 
eficial, but  when  the  society  recently  celebrated 
an  anniversary,  the  discussions  showed  that  there 
was  some  difference  of  opinion  as  to  what  they 
were  really  accomplishing.  One  party  believed 
that  their  purpose  was  to  aid  the  immigrant,  who, 
by  reason  of  his  training  in  Europe,  has  not  yet 
risen  to  the  height  of  the  American  doctrine  of 
equal  rights  for  all ;  and  the  other  party,  on  the 
contrary,  believed  that  they  were  to  help  the  immi- 
grant in  obtaining  justice,  because  one  who  is 
accustomed  to  its  administration  in  European 
courts  will  not  know  how  to  obtain  the  "  pull " 
that  is  necessary  in  the  unreliable  courts  of  his 
new  home.  If  we  free  ourselves  from  arbitrary 
interpretations  of  facts  and  look  at  the  principles, 
we  shall  be  sure  of  the  safety  of  property  on  both 
sides  of  the  ocean. 

Is  it  not  a  parallel  case  with  the  fifth  assertion, 
"  that  nowhere  have  the  power  and  disposition  to 
read  been  so  general"?  The  schooling  of  the 
nation  has  been  for  a  hundred  years  the  greatest 
honor  of  the  fatherland,  and,  while  the  completely 
illiterate  have  disappeared  in  Prussia,  it  is  well 


184  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

known  how  large  a  percentage  of  native  born 
whites  in  the  United  States  are  illiterate  still,  in 
how  many  country  districts  education  is  alarm- 
ingly crippled,  and  how  often  in  city  schools  the 
accommodation  is  insufficient.  On  the  surface, 
the  case  looks  better  for  the  sixth  point, "  that 
nowhere  have  property  and  well-being  been  so 
widely  diffused."  It  is  certainly  true  that  the 
lower  classes  are  better  off  in  some  parts  of  the 
United  States  than  in  Germany ;  America  is  the 
wealthier  country.  But  there  are  a  few  points 
which  we  must  not  overlook.  On  the  one  hand, 
well-being  is  a  relative  affair,  more  dependent 
upon  the  changes  in  social  life,  whether  up  or 
down,  than  upon  the  given  status;  and  the 
change  upwards,  the  raising  of  the  standard  in 
the  last  twenty  years,  is  much  more  to  be  felt  in 
the  fatherland  than  here ;  moreover,  well-being 
there  is  much  less  dependent  upon  wealth  than 
in  the  distinctly  commercial  atmosphere  of  this 
country  ;  and  the  socialistically  colored  insurance 
laws  of  Germany  diminish  the  social  hardships. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  diffusion  of  American 
wealth  is  accentuated,  can  it  be  denied  that  the 
extremes  are  greater  here  than  anywhere  else,  — 
that  the  army  of  the  unemployed  is  swelling  while 
the  billion-dollar  trusts  are  formed,  that  the  rich- 
est men  are  richer  than  any  European,  while  the 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  185 

slums  of  New  York  show  a  misery  that  is  unknown 
in  Berlin  ? 

A  seventh  reason  for  satisfaction  with  Amer- 
ican democracy  is  "  that  no  form  of  government 
ever  inspired  greater  affection  and  loyalty."  But 
can  it  be  truly  affirmed  that  the  German  nation 
feels  less  loyalty  and  affection  for  its  constitu- 
tional monarchy,  which  does  not  appeal  merely  to 
the  moral  personality,  but  also  to  the  aesthetic 
imagination  ?  and  does  the  affection  for  the  form 
of  government  not  fuse  with  loyalty  for  the 
highest  representative  of  the  nation?  And  yet, 
while  the  German  is  brought  up  from  his  child- 
hood to  loyal  affection  for  the  bearer  of  the 
crown,  almost  the  half  of  the  American  popula- 
tion sees  in  the  White  House  the  man  against 
whom  their  party  effort  was  directed  and  whom 
they  hope  to  fight  again  a  few  years  hence. 

There  are  no  fewer  grounds  for  questioning  the 
eighth  point  of  this  presupposed  superiority,  "  that 
nowhere  has  governmental  power  been  more  ade- 
quate to  levy  and  collect  taxes,  to  raise  armies  and 
to  disband  them,  to  maintain  public  order,  and 
to  pay  off  great  public  debts."  But  in  what,  in 
this  respect,  does  the  inferiority  of  the  German 
government  appear  ?  Is  it  not  usually  conceded, 
even  by  the  most  fervent  admirers  of  the  demo- 
cratic system,  that  the  strong  side  of  the  European 


186  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

governments  is  their  smooth  working,  due  to  the 
incomparable  preponderance  of  experts  and  spe- 
cialists? It  has  been  asserted,  again  and  again, 
that  all  the  smooth  effectiveness  of  expert  gov- 
ernment is  morally  less  valuable  than  the  rough 
working  of  a  democratic  machinery.  Whether 
that  is  true  is  not  the  question  now,  but  the  asser- 
tion implies  that  at  least  the  technique  of  govern- 
ment in  America  cannot  be  claimed  as  superior. 

It  has  been  maintained  with  full  right  that  a 
further  ground  of  the  glory  of  American  demo- 
cracy —  our  ninth  —  is  the  way  in  which  people 
of  the  most  various  races  and  nations  have  been 
absorbed  by  the  vigorous  organism  of  the  United 
States.  There  is  no  doubt  that  no  other  country 
can  show  a  similar  achievement,  but  it  is,  at  the 
same  time,  a  fact  that  no  other  country  has  had 
the  opportunity  to  try  its  skill  in  the  solution  of 
such  a  problem.  The  case  of  the  immigrants  who 
arrive  on  our  shores  with  the  full  intention  of 
becoming  loyal  Americans  can  scarcely  be  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  Polish  or  French  or  Danish 
population,  which  is  unwillingly,  and  by  the 
chance  of  history,  amalgamated  with  the  German 
nation.  Those  foreign  elements  which  came  by 
their  own  choice  to  Germany  have  been  as  thor- 
oughly assimilated  by  the  monarchy  as  the  Ameri- 
can immigrants  by  the  democracy.  America's 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  187 

whole  success  in  that  direction  is  determined  by 
its  geographical  and  economical  situation,  but  not 
by  its  form  of  government. 

The  tenth  point  —  it  may  be  our  last  —  is  the 
noble  progressiveness  of  the  democratic  nation. 
It  has  been  said  "  that  no  people  have  ever  wel- 
comed so  ardently  new  machinery  and  new  inven- 
tions generally."  But  even  if  we  consider  pro- 
gress merely  from  the  narrow  point  of  view  of 
technique,  it  seems  that  Americans  have  fallen 
into  certain  misconceptions.  Typical  of  these 
were  the  editorials  of  the  press  of  the  whole  coun- 
try when  the  report  came  that  the  United  States' 
exhibition  at  the  Paris  World's  Fair  won  the 
largest  number  of  prizes.  The  triumph  over  Ger- 
many was  at  that  time  celebrated  in  all  its  varia- 
tions. Only  later  came  the  commentary.  The 
United  States  had,  indeed,  the  largest  number  of 
awards,  but,  as  the  President  of  the  American 
Manufacturers'  Association  declared,  most  of  them 
were  of  secondary  value,  while  the  largest  num- 
ber of  first  prizes  went  to  Germany.  From  the 
121  groups  into  which  the  exhibition  was  divided, 
Germany  triumphed  in  fifty-one,  the  United 
States  in  thirty-one,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the 
number  of  German  exhibits  was  only  2500,  while 
those  from  the  United  States  numbered  6564. 
On  their  incomparably  broad  scientific  basis, 


188  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

German  industries,  especially  the  chemical  and 
electrical  ones,  have  made  the  same  rapid  progress 
which  American  industries  have  enjoyed  on  the 
basis  of  greater  wealth  and  commercial  enterprise. 
In  the  same  way  the  introduction  of  new  inven- 
tions into  the  daily  life  has  been  not  less  charac- 
teristic of  Germany.  Moreover,  progress  means 
more  than  the  production  and  introduction  of 
machinery.  Can  it  really  be  said  that  the  genius 
of  American  democracy  is  more  progressive  than 
that  of  the  German  nation,  if  the  word  be  taken 
in  its  broader  sense  ?  Does  not  the  whole  history 
of  civilization  show  that  the  real  decisive  progress 
has  always  come  from  the  great  personalities, 
while  it  is  characteristic  of  democracy  to  raise  the 
average,  but  to  keep  down  the  great  man  ?  The 
democratic  masses  are  progressive  in  the  sense 
that  if  great  men  have  opened  a  new  way,  they 
rush  eagerly  on ;  they  want  more  and  more  of  a 
given  reform  or  of  a  given  improvement,  but  to 
find  a  method  of  improvement  or  reform  which  is 
really  new  in  principle  is  never  their  immediate 
concern ;  and  yet  that  alone  means  progress  from 
the  standpoint  of  the  world's  history. 

But  this  point  in  the  discussion  would  lead 
us  beyond  our  goal ;  our  aim  was  at  first  not  to 
criticise  democracy,  but  merely  to  show  that  not 
every  good  thing  in  the  United  States  can  be 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  189 

accredited  to  the  existence  of  democracy.  If  it 
be  taken  for  granted  that  the  love  of  peace, 
religious  toleration,  the  diffusion  of  education, 
universal  suffrage,  the  assimilation  of  foreign 
elements,  the  safety  of  property,  the  love  for  the 
government,  the  efficient  working  of  the  adminis- 
tration, the  wide  extension  of  well-being,  and  the 
spirit  of  progress,  —  that  all  this  because  it  is  pre- 
sent in  the  United  States  is  a  product  and  char- 
acteristic of  democracy,  then  any  critical  study  of 
the  nature  of  democracy  is  superfluous.  But  such 
an  assumption  would  beg  the  question.  We  had 
to  ask,  therefore,  at  the  threshold  of  our  inquiry, 
whether  monarchical  Germany  is  inferior  in  these 
points  of  distinction,  and  we  have  seen  that  the  facts 
speak  against  such  an  arbitrary  hypothesis.  The 
value  of  democracy  cannot  be  proved  by  reference 
to  qualities  which  are  to  the  same  degree,  in  some 
respects  perhaps  even  still  more  strongly,  present 
in  a  so-called  aristocracy.  It  has  thus  been  our 
preparatory  task  to  clear  from  the  way  of  the  dis- 
cussion the  popular  notion  that  because  America 
is  a  glorious  country  under  democratic  govern- 
ment, therefore  every  American  success  must  be 
to  the  glory  of  democracy.  With  the  same  right, 
the  same  reasons  for  satisfaction  and  pride  might 
be  construed  in  Germany  as  arguments  for  the 
superiority  of  the  monarchical  system.  A  fair 


190  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

discussion  will  refuse  such   assistance   and   will 
consider  the  problem  as  a  theoretical  one. 

II 

A  theoretical  discussion  of  all  sides  of  democracy 
was  not  our  aim.  We  set  out  to  answer  the  ques- 
tion of  the  American,  whether  the  German  ought 
not  to  prefer  democracy.  The  question  involves 
logically  a  full  belief  in  the  merits  and  advantages 
of  democracy ;  the  answer  which  has  to  explain 
why  the  German  negatives  the  question  is  thus  not 
bound  to  restate  the  arguments  in  favor  of  demo- 
cratic government;  they  are  considered  as  well 
known  to  the  questioner,  and  the  other  side  alone 
is  in  debate.  No  one,  indeed,  can  be  blind  to  the 
enormous  moral  advantages  of  democracy.  It  re- 
inforces individual  initiative,  and  through  this  the 
feeling  of  responsibility,  it  secures  a  high  average 
of  development,  it  stimulates  every  man  to  an 
equality  of  effort;  and  each  one  of  these  influences 
is  worth  being  paid  for  in  high  sacrifices.  Further, 
it  makes  an  absolute  change  of  policy  possible,  if 
the  nation  is  dissatisfied  with  the  old  course ;  it 
reinforces  the  moral  truth  of  the  equality  of  men, 
and  it  avoids  arbitrary  and  unjust  standards  of 
comparative  valuation  ;  in  short,  its  ideal  aim  is 
moral,  just,  educative,  and  effective. 

But  have  these  merits  not  also  their  defects  ?  is 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  191 

the  realization  of  these  ideal  ends  probable  or  even 
possible  ?  are  not  certain  other  ideals  of  equal  value 
totally  neglected  ?  The  German  who  seeks  to  in- 
quire thus  into  the  logical  meaning  and  working 
of  democracy  may,  of  course,  feel  from  the  first 
disinclined  to  get  his  information  from  the  United 
States,  inasmuch  as  the  experiment  was  made  there 
under  exceptionally  favorable  conditions.  There 
was  nothing  typical  in  its  development,  and  that 
unique  combination  of  splendid  possibilities  might 
have  made  a  noble  showing,  even  if  democracy  had 
been  the  most  deplorable  form  of  government,  and 
if  everything  had  had  to  be  achieved  against  the 
spirit  of  democracy.  Here,  in  a  land  which,  by 
its  enormous  possibilities,  its  abundant  wealth,  its 
freedom  from  traditions,  attracted  millions  of  the 
most  energetic  men  of  all  nations,  their  combined 
efforts,  not  dissipated  by  the  militarism  which 
results  from  the  geographical  conditions  of  the 
European  powers,  must  be  effective  in  spite  of  any 
governmental  scheme.  To  learn  a  lesson  in  com- 
parative sociology  the  German,  therefore,  looks 
more  naturally  to  France,  where  the  periods  of 
monarchy  were  not  the  least  prosperous  ones  of 
the  century ;  or  to  Brazil,  where  everything  turned 
from  good  to  bad  when  the  regime  of  the  old  em- 
peror was  exchanged  for  a  republic.  But  even  if 
we  take  all  our  demonstrations  of  the  practical  re- 


192  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

suits  from  the  United  States,  how  much  power  to 
convince  belongs  to  those  principles? 

If  we  begin  with  the  most  seducing  tenet  of  de- 
mocracy, its  belief  in  the  equality  of  men  and  their 
equal  right  to  determine  the  fate  of  the  nation, 
we  cannot  doubt  that  the  dangerous  error  of  the 
appeal  is  hidden  merely  by  the  glittering  gener- 
ality of  the  term  equality.  That  man  is  equal  in 
so  far  as  every  one  is  equal  before  God  is  not  a 
new  doctrine ;  it  did  not  have  to  wait  for  the  state 
philosophers  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Every 
man's  good  will  has  the  same  intrinsic,  absolute 
value,  but  this  moral  truth  does  not  involve  any 
consequences  as  to  the  nature  of  man.  The  ine- 
quality of  his  strength  and  beauty,  his  talents  and 
intellect,  is  more  certain  than  his  similarities ;  and 
power  to  determine  by  a  logical  decision  the  wisest 
course  of  national  action  is,  of  course,  dependent 
upon  his  intellect,  his  insight,  and  his  character ;  in 
short,  dependent  upon  the  unequal  characteristics, 
and  without  any  internal  reference  to  the  aspect  in 
which  man  is  really  equal.  The  only  excuse  for 
political  equality  is  thus  not  that  it  expresses  the 
real  equality,  but  that  it  is  impartial  to  the  different 
kinds  of  inequality.  Every  adjustment  of  political 
rights  to  the  existing  inequality  of  men  is  open  to 
the  reproach  of  unfairness  and  arbitrariness.  If 
such  adjustment  were  made  according  to  educa- 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  193 

tion,  it  would  be  easy  to  insist  that  the  most  edu- 
cated are  not  necessarily  the  purest  characters ; 
if  according  to  wealth  or  birth,  it  could  be  shown 
that  the  rich  man  or  the  nobleman  is  not  necessa- 
rily the  most  intelligent  and  the  most  educated. 
Every  system,  in  a  word,  involves  some  injustice, 
and  the  only  advantage  of  mechanical  equality  is 
not  that  it  is  freer  from  injustice,  but  that  it  min- 
gles all  possible  kinds  of  injustice,  —  without  any 
preference  for  a  special  one,  indeed,  but  therefore, 
also,  without  the  possibility  of  securing  at  least 
the  partial  justice  of  every  other  system.  But 
this  small  negative  merit  brings  with  it  an  abun- 
dance of  defects  and  dangers,  which  must  be 
clearly  felt  by  every  unprejudiced  observer  of 
American  life.  A  by-product,  visible  on  the  sur- 
face, is  the  empty  conventionality  which  finds  its 
ideal  in  likeness  to  one's  neighbor.  The  constant 
desire  of  the  democratic  American  is  to  avoid  an 
individual  standpoint,  to  accept  a  pattern  in  his 
social  and  aesthetic  and  intellectual  life,  to  dress 
and  to  read,  to  travel  and  to  talk  like  everybody 
else.  But  the  dogma  of  equality  entrains  much 
greater  evils.  One  is  chronic  dilettantism.  In 
a  democratic  community  every  one  can  do  every- 
thing ;  whether  he  is  on  a  school  board  or  in  an 
embassy,  in  a  legislative  or  in  an  administrative 
position,  his  guileless  freedom  from  the  influences 


194  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

of  technical  preparation,  together  with  the  fact 
that  he  is  a  democratic  citizen,  fits  him  for  the  job. 
The  need  of  specialized  experts  is  not  felt,  and  the 
result  is  an  ineffective  triviality  which  repels  the 
best  men  and  opens  wide  the  door  to  dishonesty. 
The  career  of  experts  in  all  functions  of  public 
activity  is  the  pride  of  Germany,  —  where  the 
school  committeeman  or  the  mayor  or  the  diplo- 
mat climbs  up  step  by  step,  and  reaches  the  great- 
est effectiveness  by  his  lifelong  specialization. 

But  worse  even  than  democratic  dilettantism 
is  the  lowness  of  aims  which  results  from  the  be- 
lief in  equality.  If  everybody's  judgment  is  of 
equal  value,  only  that  is  valuable  which  appeals 
equally  to  everybody.  This  is  an  indirect  and  yet 
a  logically  necessary  consequence,  which  shows  its 
practical  results  with  an  alarming  clearness.  There 
are  only  two  good  things  which  appeal  to  every- 
body, because  they  address  the  lowest  instincts : 
money  and  physical  strength.  The  result  is  that 
commercialism  and  athletics  absorb  the  energies 
of  men.  That  does  not  mean  that  those  who  hunt 
for  wealth  or  indulge  in  sport  do  so  in  every  case 
because  their  lower  instincts  are  involved ;  but  it 
does  mean  that  ends  which  appeal  to  the  higher 
tendencies  only  remain  ineffective  as  stimuli  for 
the  national  life.  The  final  outcome  must  be 
that  commercialism,  if  left  alone,  would  devastate 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  195 

science  and  art,  education  and  society,  law  and 
politics ;  city  government  and  State  legislature 
would  go  over  into  the  hands  of  men  who  cared 
for  the  little  money  which  was  honestly  in  it,  or 
for  the  much  money  which  was  in  it  dishonestly, 
and  the  national  politics  would  become  tainted  by 
the  influence  of  commercial  corporations. 

But  all  this  has  also  another  side.  Where  the 
belief  in  inequality  somewhat  discredits  those  pre- 
miums which  appeal  to  the  lower  instincts,  and 
which  are,  therefore,  desirable  for  every  human 
being,  a  certain  outer  organization  of  the  national 
life  under  the  point  of  view  of  the  aristocratic 
values  also  becomes  necessary.  A  kind  of  ideal 
coin  must  be  stamped  which  can  circulate  in  daily 
practical  life  like  money  ;  a  system  of  degrees,  of 
titles,  of  honors,  of  decorations  must  result  which 
give  distinction  without  the  power  to  satisfy  the 
lower  instincts.  They  are  based  on  examinations, 
on  creditable  service,  on  the  judgment  of  experts, 
on  excellence  in  all  those  directions  where  the  ap- 
preciation of  the  masses  stops.  The  consequences 
are  clear.  The  more  this  ideal  coin  gains  credit, 
the  freer  its  owner  becomes  from  the  necessity  of 
appealing  to  the  masses  and  of  attracting  the  atten- 
tion of  the  half -educated  and  the  quarter-educated : 
his  title  carries  in  a  condensed  form  the  apprecia- 
tion of  the  experts.  Where  the  democratic  spirit 


196  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

makes  such  coining  impossible,  man  must  appeal 
again  and  again  to  the  masses,  who  have  no  mem- 
ory and  no  refined  discrimination.     The  result  is 
not  necessarily,  as  Europeans  often  wrongly  imag- 
ine, a  general  mob-like  vulgarity,  but  the  more  civ- 
ilized forms  of  vulgarity :  a  bumptious  oratory,  a 
flippant  superficiality  of  style,  a  lack  of  aesthetic 
refinement,  an  underestimation  of  the  serious  spe- 
cialist and  an  overestimation  of  the  unproductive 
popularizer,  a  constant  exploitation  of  immature 
young  men  with  loud  newspaper  voices  and  com- 
plete inability  to  appreciate  the  services  of  older 
men,  a  triumph  of  gossip,  and  a  crushing  defeat 
of  all  aims  that  work  against  the  lazy  liking  for 
money-making  and  comfort.     On  the  other  hand, 
in  an  aristocratic  country,  the  existence  of  a  sys- 
tem of   honors  becomes  secondarily  a  new  form 
of  appeal,  even  to  the  masses.     As  soon  as  people 
feel  that   the   distinction  of   such  honors  given 
for  intrinsic  worth  outweighs  the  distinction  of 
wealth,  the  honors  themselves  become  objects  of 
desire,  even  for  those  to  whom  the  ideal  ends  in 
themselves  do  not  appeal.     The  development  of 
a  system  of  symbolic  honors  thus  draws  the  peo- 
ple  more   and   more  away   from   commercialism 
and  reinforces  the  striving  towards  higher  aims 
and   ideals.     In  its  last  results  democracy  must 
thus  lower  the  aims  of  the  best  to  the  standard  of 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  197 

the  masses,  while  aristocracy  must  push  the  masses 
with  their  lower  instincts  into  a  striving  towards 
higher  ends. 

The  foregoing  stands  in  close  relation  to  an- 
other feature  of  pure  democracy,  —  the  conspic- 
uous absence  of  great  men.  Democratic  leaders 
are  mostly  men  who  take  control  of  the  move- 
ments of  the  masses,  but  not  men  who  have  the 
inner  greatness  to  lead  the  masses  into  new  direc- 
tions. This  is  true  for  every  field,  for  science  and 
literature,  just  as  well  as  for  internal  and  exter- 
nal politics.  The  whole  system  must  necessarily 
push  into  the  foreground  the  skillful  manager 
who  appeals  to  the  average  man,  and  must  keep 
down  the  really  great  man,  who  goes  the  unpop- 
ular way  of  new  purposes.  No  one  can  rise  whose 
working  cannot  be  understood  in  every  phase  by 
the  man  behind  the  plough.  And  yet  it  is  an 
illusion  to  imagine  that  the  great  men  can  ever, 
be  replaced  by  the  high  average  of  the  masses. 
A  really  great  thought,  a  really  great  inspiration, 
has  never  come  from  the  diffused  intelligence  of 
an  aggregation  or  from  the  zeal  of  a  multitude. 
A  parliament  is  an  effective  vehicle  for  acknow- 
ledged ideas,  but  it  never  gave  rise  to  a  new 
thought ;  no  philosophical  or  religious  inspiration 
ever  came  to  the  world  by  a  majority  vote.  The 
democratic  situation  will  make  great  work  possi- 


198  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

ble  merely  where  this  is  the  result  of  a  gigantic 
cooperation,  as  demanded  by  commerce  and  in- 
dustry, or  where  individual  premiums  in  the  form 
of  great  wealth  stand  as  temptations,  as  in  the 
case  of  practical  inventions.  It  is  not  by  chance 
that  while  American  inventions  are  in  line  with 
the  best  inventions  of  Europe,  they  are  none  the 
less  for  the  most  part  based  on  scientific  discov- 
eries made  in  Europe.  Where  cooperation  is  use- 
less, as  in  every  case  of  intellectual  or  aesthetical 
or  moral  effort,  and  where  no  commercial  pre- 
mium is  offered,  a  democratic  society  must  remain 
sterile  and  commonplace,  since  it  has  no  means  of 
stimulating  the  truly  great  men  in  their  necessary 
solitude.  Where  a  genius  is  needed,  democracy 
appoints  a  committee. 

Perhaps  still  more  closely  are  defect  and  virtue 
bound  together  in  the  case  of  the  democratic 
spirit  of  individual  activity.  Every  one  feels 
himself  lawmaker  and  authority ;  the  immediate 
result  is  the  tendency  to  disregard  every  other 
authority  but  one's  own  self.  A  lack  of  reve- 
rence pervades  the  whole  community  and  controls 
the  family,  the  school,  the  public  life.  The  pert 
American  boy  who  does  just  what  he  pleases  may 
thus  get  an  early  training  in  democratic  politics ; 
but  while  he  wastes  the  best  of  the  home  and  of  the 
classroom,  he  gets  at  the  same  time  the  worst  pos- 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  199 

sible  training  for  the  duties  of  life,  all  of  which 
demand  that  he  do  later  quite  other  things  than 
those  which  he  likes  to  do.  He  will  learn  too  late 
that  it  is  a  great  thing  to  command,  but  a  greater 
thing  to  obey,  and  that  no  one  can  sign  early 
enough  the  declaration  of  dependence.  Where 
no  subordination  is  learned,  no  self-sacrifice  and 
no  enthusiasm  can  be  expected,  and  all  institu- 
tions of  the  land  must  slowly  adjust  themselves 
to  the  much-lamented  influence  of  those  who  seek 
merely  pleasure  and  success. 

But  does  not  the  individual  independence  in 
democracy  involve  at  least  the  highest  degree 
of  liberty?  When  Lecky,  in  his  famous  book, 
coupled  the  two  conceptions,  his  "  Democracy  and 
Liberty "  meant  rather  Democracy  versus  Lib- 
erty. And  Democracy  remains  the  defendant 
from  whatever  standpoint  we  may  consider  it.  If 
we  approach  it  from  the  side  of  social  philosophy, 
we  must  understand  that,  philosophically,  freedom 
means  self-determination,  but  that  self-determina- 
tion is  characterized  not  only  by  the  absence  of 
outer  determining  factors,  but  by  the  harmoniza- 
tion of  all  the  inner  energies.  A  man  is  not  free, 
in  a  moral  sense,  when  he  is  a  slave  of  his  passions 
and  lower  instincts,  when  he  is  unable  to  control 
his  impulses  by  his  higher  ideas.  In  the  same 
way  a  social  body  gains  no  real  liberty  simply  by 


200  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

the  overthrowing  of  external  forces,  but  merely 
by  an  organization  in  which  the  higher  elements 
control  the  lower  ones,  in  which  the  representa- 
tives of  social  ideals  supersede  the  forces  of  selfish 
social  instincts  and  vulgar  impulses.  A  social 
organism  will  thus  be  the  more  free,  the  more  the 
influence  of  the  best  men,  of  the  noblest  charac- 
ters, and  of  the  best  educated  personalities  sup- 
presses a  system  of  equalization. 

The  outcome  is  the  same  if  we  come  to  the 
question  from  a  practical  side.  Democracy  has, 
first,  a  necessary  tendency  to  abundant  lawmaking 
of  a  casuistic  character,  to  restrictions  and  pro- 
hibitions, and  a  continuous  meddling  with  private 
affairs,  inasmuch  as  that  is  the  only  remedy  for 
evils  at  the  disposal  of  such  a  community  and  the 
only  opportunity  for  the  political  representative 
to  prove  his  right  to  exist,  not  to  mention  some 
reasons  of  less  dignity.  In  democracies,  more 
easily  than  anywhere  else,  all  kinds  of  protection 
and  prohibition  interfere  with  the  social  and 
economic  liberties  of  the  population.  Further, 
democracy,  when  it  is  not  the  question  of  a  small 
country,  as  in  ancient  Greece  or  in  modern 
Switzerland,  but  of  scores  of  millions,  must  neces- 
sarily bring  into  existence  the  party  machine,  and 
finally  the  party  boss.  That  the  machine  and 
boss  system  repels  the  best  men  from  public  life 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  201 

and  attracts  the  cheapest  elements  to  politics,  that 
it  opens  the  doors  for  corruption  and  selfishness, 
is  only  one  side  of  the  shield;  that  it  destroys 
civil  liberty  is  the  other.  The  rule  of  the  ma- 
chine is  more  tyrannical  and  more  absolute  than 
that  of  a  king.  The  party  rule  in  America,  with 
its  methods  of  nomination,  deprives  the  individual 
of  his  political  powers  more  completely  than  any 
aristocratic  system,  and  the  despotism  of  the  boss 
easily  turns  into  the  tyranny  of  a  group  of  cap- 
italists. History  has  shown  that  this  tyranny  in 
democracy  not  seldom  takes  even  the  govern- 
mental form  of  a  political  dictatorship.  That  out- 
come is  not  to  be  feared  in  America,  but  simply 
because  the  American  masses  lack  the  esthetic 
sense  for  the  beauty  of  imperial  pageantry,  that 
sense  which  fascinates  the  French  when  Boulanger 
returns  on  his  black  horse  from  the  parade.  Demo- 
crats are  always  inclined  to  take  bad  sesthetical 
taste  for  good  moral  feeling. 

Is  the  government  of  democracy  at  least  an 
effective  political  instrument  ?  Of  course  a  gov- 
ernment behind  which  the  wealth  and  strength 
and  power  of  a  gigantic  nation  stand,  is  effective 
by  its  mere  weight ;  but  the  question  is  whether 
it  gains  an  additional  advantage  by  the  Demo- 
cratic-Republican machinery.  Has  it,  for  instance, 
an  advantage  in  political  effectiveness  over  the 


202  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

opposite  extreme,  —  the  government  of  Russia? 
The  Czar  has  had  certainly  no  reason  to  be  dis- 
satisfied with  the  comparative  success  of  his  cabi- 
net. To  be  sure,  the  democratic  nation  has  this 
great  advantage,  that  the  discontented  majority 
can  break  up  the  policy  of  the  day  and  substitute 
a  new  one;  but  in  itself  it  is  no  improvement 
simply  to  try  the  other  party,  and  a  state  in  which 
all  efforts  at  reform  must  necessarily  take  the 
shape  of  seeking  to  throw  overboard  the  existing 
government,  chooses,  at  least,  a  very  indirect  way 
for  the  improvement  of  public  affairs.  In  foreign 
politics,  too,  the  government  naturally  suffers  in 
several  respects.  It  cannot  have  secrets  ;  it  must 
play  all  the  time  an  open  hand.  It  must  make 
continual  concessions  to  public  moods  and  caprices. 
Further,  it  has  not  sufficient  time  at  its  disposal 
to  enter  into  far-reaching  enterprises,  as  it  cannot 
rely  on  its  own  continuance.  Nor  can  it,  finally, 
awaken  in  outsiders  the  confidence  which  an  in- 
dependent continuity  of  government  engenders. 

What  do  all  the  foregoing  arguments  prove? 
Carthaginem  esse  delendam  f  That  democracy 
is  an  evil?  Certainly  not.  We  have  emphasized 
the  great  moral  and  educational  and  practical 
achievements  of  the  democratic  spirit,  and  no 
intelligent  student  of  social  philosophy  can  over- 
look the  dangerous  possibilities  and  the  evil  ten- 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  203 

dencies  of  aristocratic  society.  The  principles  of 
equality  and  inequality  are,  then,  both  one-sided 
tendencies  with  immense  energies  and  possibilities 
for  good,  but  encompassed  by  dangers,  both  open 
to  compromises  with  human  selfishness  and  to 
demoralization  by  the  masses  or  by  the  classes. 
The  logical  superiority  of  democracy  is  out  of  the 
question,  and  just  as  no  American  wishes  to  see 
Dewey  or  Roosevelt  established  as  emperor,  so 
no  sane  German  wishes  to  see  a  political  party 
leader  become  president  of  a  German  republic. 
What  open-minded  men  on  both  sides  wish  can  be 
merely  that  the  unhealthy  tendencies  which  are 
involved  in  each  form  of  public  life  may  be 
avoided  and  suppressed ;  but,  in  itself,  the  one 
state  form  does  not  stand  higher  than  the  other. 
The  form  of  government  under  which  a  nation 
lives  —  so  the  educated  average  German  would 
argue  —  depends  upon  the  conditions  of  its  his- 
toric development :  a  colony  of  men  who  went 
out  as  pioneers  and  who  separated  themselves 
from  the  mother  country  could  not  find  unity  and 
self-dependence  under  another  form  than  that  of 
the  American  democracy,  while  a  land  which 
hammers  out  its  unity  in  welding  a  multitude  of 
states,  each  with  a  long  history  under  kings  and 
princes,  needs  as  its  highest  symbol  the  crown 
of  an  emperor. 


204  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

If  in  these  two  lands  everything  were  to  be 
moulded  by  the  form  of  the  state  alone,  the  final 
outcome  would  be  the  greatest  possible  difference 
in  the  national  life  of  the  two,  —  one  thoroughly 
democratic,  the  other  thoroughly  aristocratic.  But 
the  other  possibility  is  open,  that  each  land  sup- 
plements those  tendencies  which  are  a  necessary 
consequence  of  its  external  form  of  public  life 
by  compensatory  functions  which  reinforce  the 
other  side;  if  democracy  counterbalances  the 
evils  of  the  crowd  by  social  efforts  of  the  aristo- 
cratic type,  and  if  monarchy  overcomes  its  intrin- 
sic one-sidedness  by  democratic  reforms  and  im- 
pulses, the  differences  will  be  unessential,  and 
both  countries  will  show  a  profound  harmony  of 
national  instincts.  Exactly  that  situation  seems 
from  day  to  day  more  the  case  of  the  United 
States  and  Germany.  They  become  more  and 
more  alike,  and  the  fact  that  one  is  by  birth,  and 
desires  to  remain,  a  monarchy,  while  the  other 
desires  to  remain  a  republic,  appears  secondary  and 
unessential.  How  is  that  possible  ?  A  hundred 
years  ago  the  question  of  political  government 
moved  the  world  and  determined  the  greatest  dif- 
ferences. How  has  it  become  so  unessential  that 
no  one  to-day  seriously  considers  the  problem 
whether  democracy  or  monarchy  is  the  "  better  " 
form  of  state?  And  if  the  progress  of  history 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  205 

has  abolished  that  problem,  how  does  it  happen 
that  the  new  life  in  the  two  lands  moves  in  op- 
posite directions,  —  that  on  monarchical  ground 
towards  greater  equality,  that  on  democratic 
ground  towards  greater  aristocracy,  and  both  thus 
towards  the  same  type  of  social  existence,  in  spite 
of  the  important  individual  characteristics  and 
differences? 

To  understand  this  whole  situation  we  must 
take  a  more  general  point  of  view,  perhaps  even 
the  most  general  one  which  the  philosophy  of  his- 
tory suggests. 

m 

If  we  try  to  bring  order  into  the  manif  oldness 
of  tendencies  which  characterize  a  period,  we  must 
seek  the  deeper  motives  and  the  underlying  ener- 
gies, as  the  mere  classification  of  outer  phenomena 
is  easily  misleading.  For  a  newspaper  editorial  it 
may  do,  for  instance,  to  call  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury the  period  of  natural  science,  but  the  super- 
ficiality of  such  an  appellation  becomes  clear  to 
every  one  who  examines  more  carefully  the  first 
half  of  the  century,  or,  better,  considers  the  pro- 
gress of  natural  science  and  technique  in  periods 
that  have  gone  before.  When  Schiller,  one  hun- 
dred years  ago,  praised  the  man  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  he  called  him  the  man  who  had  mastered 


206  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

nature,  and  who  was  fascinated  by  the  victory 
over  the  energies  of  nature.  We  cannot  under- 
stand the  times  better  if  we  choose  another  outer 
mark  for  the  characterization  of  the  time ;  we 
must  proceed  from  external  to  internal  factors. 
It  is  so  everywhere  in  scientific  classifications. 
The  child  divides  the  animals  into  those  of  the 
air  and  those  of  the  water,  those  of  the  air  into 
such  as  fly  and  such  as  do  not  fly.  The  zoologist 
neglects  such  external  resemblances,  and  divides 
them  into  those  with  a  backbone  and  those  with- 
out a  backbone ;  and  among  the  vertebrates,  he 
distinguishes  the  mammals  from  the  non-mammals, 
and  so  his  classification  separates  much  that  seems 
to  belong  together.  If  we  seek  such  principles 
of  internal  division  for  the  phenomena  of  civiliza- 
tion, we  find  only  one  which  is  deep  enough  to 
allow  us  to  comprehend  the  true  connections  :  it 
is  the  division  into  realism  and  idealism.  I  know 
that  some  realist  would  at  once  be  inclined  here 
to  think  of  the  zoological  classes  we  have  just 
mentioned,  and  to  consider  the  realists  as  beings 
with,  and  the  idealists  as  beings  without,  a  back- 
bone. But  we  have  at  first  not  to  praise  and  not 
to  blame,  but  simply  to  separate  the  different  types 
of  human  interests. 

The  realist  seeks  reality  in  objects,  the  idealist 
seeks  it  in  ideas.     The  realist  considers,  therefore, 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  207 

that  which  is  as  final,  and  the  idealist  that  which 
ought  to  be.  The  realist,  therefore,  relies  on 
perception,  the  idealist  on  feeling.  The  one  seeks 
to  understand  the  world,  the  other  to  ennoble  the 
world.  The  one  works  with  the  understanding, 
the  other  by  means  of  inspiration.  Realism,  there- 
fore, urges  on  to  science,  idealism  to  philosophy 
and  religion ;  and  in  the  scientific  realm  the  real- 
ist works  inductively,  the  idealist  deductively: 
the  realist  prefers  natural  science,  the  idealist  his- 
torical science.  The  realist  emphasizes  technique, 
tries  to  master  nature,  and  produces  material  for 
exchange;  the  idealist  finds  his  mission  in  art, 
masters  nature  by  the  inner  liberation  of  his  mind, 
and  creates  symbols.  In  art  the  realist  is  natural- 
ist, the  idealist  comes  in  the  garb  of  romanticism, 
of  symbolism,  or  classicism.  The  realist  seeks  the 
essence  of  human  life  in  pleasure  and  pain,  the 
idealist  in  man's  will.  Therefore  morality  is,  for 
the  realist,  based  on  utility :  for  the  idealist,  on 
the  idea  of  good.  For  one  the  greatest  happiness 
of  the  greatest  number  is  the  criterion,  for  the 
other  the  idea  of  duty,  independent  of  happiness 
and  majorities.  As  all  men  have  equal  capacities 
for  pleasure  and  pain,  the  realist  considers  all  men 
equal.  The  realist  thus  believes  in  the  masses, 
the  idealist  in  the  hero  and  the  genius.  The  real- 
ist is,  therefore,  democratic,  the  idealist  aristo- 


208  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

cratic :  the  realist  is  cosmopolitan  and  humani- 
tarian, the  idealist  is  national  and  imperialistic ; 
the  realist  seeks  his  goal  in  liberty,  the  idealist  in 
justice. 

Realism  and  Idealism  are  the  two  poles  of  man- 
kind, and  just  as  the  realism  of  the  man  and  the 
idealism  of  the  woman  supplement  each  other  in 
every  noble  home,  so  these  two  great  tendencies 
have  always  cooperated  in  the  history  of  the  peo- 
ples. We  have  only  to  look  to  the  two  greatest 
men  of  ancient  Greece,  the  two  men  who  con- 
trolled the  thought  of  more  than  a  thousand  years, 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  to  feel  at  once  the  typical  ex- 
pression of  the  two  great  tendencies.  "  Plato," 
says  Goethe,  "  penetrates  the  world  to  fill  it  with 
his  own  ideals ;  he  does  not  wish  to  analyze  the 
world,  but  to  bring  it  into  harmony  with  the  good 
and  the  true  and  the  beautiful.  Aristotle,  how- 
ever, approaches  the  world  like  a  master  builder ; 
he  examines  the  ground  and  brings  material  to- 
gether and  arranges  it  to  build  up  his  solid  pyra- 
mid." As  long  as  men  will  take  a  systematic 
view  of  the  world  and  of  human  life,  it  will  be 
ultimately  Platonic  or  Aristotelian. 

Such  a  cooperation  of  the  two  tendencies  does 
not  mean  simply  their  fusion,  but  rather  their  al- 
ternation ;  and  when  they  work  together,  —  that 
is,  when  they  reach  a  compromise  in  a  special  case, 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  209 

—  a  state  of  equilibrium  ensues,  and  the  problem 
is  then  relatively  solved.  But  so  long  as  there  is 
to  be  development,  the  one  or  the  other  must 
prevail.  As  we  cannot  move  towards  the  right 
and  towards  the  left  at  the  same  time,  so  the  social 
mind  cannot  turn,  at  the  same  time,  to  national- 
ism and  cosmopolitanism,  to  naturalistic  and  to 
symbolistic  art,  to  inductive  and  to  philosophic 
science,  to  atheism  and  to  religion.  And  such 
an  alternation  is  the  necessary  outcome  of  the 
mental  structure :  every  psychic  movement  has  a 
tendency  to  go  to  an  extreme,  and  the  extreme 
has  a  tendency  to  produce  a  reaction  in  the  oppo- 
site direction,  which  must  itself  go  to  the  extreme 
again.  If  the  tendencies  alternate,  it  is  clear  that 
one  alone  does  not  mean  progress  and  the  other 
regress;  both  are  indispensable  to  development, 
and  it  is  absurd  to  imagine  that  the  realistic 
movement,  for  example,  is  alone  progressive  and 
the  idealistic  energy  a  hindrance  to  civilization. 
Whoever  stands,  in  the  battle  of  the  day,  on  one 
side  must  see  the  enemy  on  the  other  side ;  but 
from  the  standpoint  of  social  philosophy,  both 
energies,  realism  and  idealism,  are  equally  impor- 
tant and  valuable.  It  is  unfair  to  imply  that 
realism  is  selfish  and  idealism  unselfish  :  the  utili- 
tarian morality  of  the  realist  is  not  less  unselfish 
than  the  intuitional  morality  of  the  idealist  j  real- 


210  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

ism  is  not  in  its  nature  egoistic,  just  as  idealism 
is  not  unpractical.  And  both  sides  can  be  equally 
inhuman  and  base.  It  was  realism  which  sharp- 
ened the  blade  of  the  guillotine,  and  idealism 
which  set  fire  to  the  funeral  piles  of  the  Middle 
Ages ;  it  was  realism  which  at  times  brought  the 
mill  laborers  to  the  misery  of  starvation,  and  ideal- 
ism which  shot  down  the  helpless  lower  races  in 
the  dark  countries.  Great  and  small  men,  clever 
and  stupid  men,  noble  and  base  men,  have  been 
always  on  either  side. 

If  this  alternation  characterizes  the  progress  of 
civilization,  it  is  further  clear  that  the  movement 
cannot  be  a  simple  pendulum  movement.  The 
pendulum  always  swings  again  to  the  same  point ; 
civilization,  on  the  other  hand,  moves  forward. 
If  civilization  is  realistic,  then  idealistic,  then 
realistic  again,  it  is  not  the  same  realism  for  a 
second  time.  The  past  is  not  simply  repeated ; 
the  new  movement  arises  from  the  same  moral 
energies,  but  the  whole  foregoing  development  is 
included  in  the  new  position.  Every  phase  of 
this  gigantic  counterplay  brings  certain  problems 
to  rest  and  fulfillment  by  a  compromise,  and  new 
problems  come  to  the  front.  Realism  takes  up 
one  problem  and  carries  its  one-sided  solution  to 
an  extreme;  then  awakes  the  idealistic  counter- 
movement  and  becomes  powerful.  Idealism  takes 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  211 

up  new  impulses  and  reinforces  them  till  a  real- 
istic counter-movement  begins  ;  but  the  first  pro- 
blem, since  both  sides  have  fought  for  it  and  have 
defended  their  extreme  positions,  comes  in  the 
mean  time  to  a  compromise,  and  thus  ceases  to  be 
a  problem.  It  is  thus  less  a  pendulum  movement 
than  a  spiral  movement.  It  is  as  if  we  should 
climb  up  a  tower  by  a  spiral  staircase ;  we  are 
then  looking  from  the  windows  of  the  tower,  now 
to  the  north  and  now  to  the  south,  but  we  never 
look  twice  through  the  same  window  :  whenever 
the  stair  brings  us  back  to  the  same  side,  the 
window  lies  higher,  the  view  has  become  more 
extended. 

Such  alternations  took  centuries  in  the  slow 
rhythm  of  earlier  civilization,  but  the  changes 
have  come  more  and  more  swiftly,  and  in  the  last 
hundred  years  they  have  followed  each  other  with 
the  rapidity  of  generations,  in  so  far  as  the  great 
fundamental  movements  of  a  world-civilization 
are  in  question.  Of  course,  whenever  one  wave 
begins  to  swell,  it  does  not  mean  that  the  after- 
effects of  the  foregoing  wave  have  disappeared ; 
while  one  world-tendency  is  at  its  maximum,  the 
movement  of  the  last,  and  perhaps  even  of  that 
before  the  last,  may  still  be  felt,  and  the  slow  be- 
ginning of  the  next  wave  may  already  be  percep- 
tible to  the  sensitive  mind.  And,  secondly,  this 


212  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

great  fundamental  up  and  down  of  realism  and 
idealism  in  the  world's  civilization  does  not  exclude 
the  possibility  that  the  same  change  of  realistic 
and  idealistic  energies  may  continue  in  narrower 
circles,  in  local  realms,  in  special  problems,  inde- 
pendently of  the  great  world-movements  ;  a  local 
realistic  movement  may  thus  coincide  with  a  gen- 
eral realistic  tendency,  and  thus  reinforce  it,  or 
may  fall  together  with  a  general  idealistic  wave, 
and  thus  inhibit  it,  or  limit  it  to  certain  regions. 

This  change  from  generation  to  generation  is 
reflected  very  clearly  in  the  alternating  phases 
of  philosophical  thought.  The  middle  of  the 
eighteenth  century  was  controlled  by  a  realistic 
view  of  the  world :  experience  and  analysis  were 
the  methods  —  sensualism,  skepticism,  materialism 
were  the  results  ;  the  spirits  of  Locke  and  Hume, 
of  the  French  encyclopedists  and  Voltaire,  were 
in  the  foreground.  The  reaction  came  with  the 
German  idealism  of  the  end  of  the  eighteenth 
century ;  Kant  emphasizes  the  "  ought "  as 
against  the  "  is,"  and  the  idealistic  philosophy,  in 
its  increasing  energy  from  Kant  to  Fichte,  to 
Schelling,  and  finally  to  Hegel,  conquers  the  phi- 
losophical world.  Hegelianism  represents  the  ex- 
treme which  demands  a  realistic  reaction ;  before 
the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  reached, 
idealism  lies  again  in  the  dust,  a  new  realism 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  213 

triumphs,  positivism  and  materialism  push  to  the 
foreground,  Comte  and  Spencer  become  the  spokes- 
men of  an  unphilosophic  age,  and  natural  science, 
with  Darwin  and  Helmholtz  as  leaders,  absorbs 
the  philosophizing  interest  of  the  time.  But  be- 
fore the  nineteenth  century  came  to  an  end,  the 
situation  changed  once  more  :  for  about  ten  years 
philosophy  has  been  again  on  the  idealistic  track. 
While  realistic  philosophy  ran  to  its  extreme,  from 
materialism  to  psychologism  and  sociologism,  a 
serious  idealistic  reaction  began  in  the  midst  of 
empirical  scientists  who  had  despised  philosophy 
for  forty  years.  The  leading  thinkers,  the  world 
over,  plunged  again  into  epistemological  inquiries, 
Kant  and  Fichte  were  revived,  and  an  ethical  vol- 
untarism grew  from  year  to  year.  The  situation 
of  the  world's  scholarship  of  to-day  shows  decid- 
edly in  every  line  the  philosophical,  idealistic 
trend,  notwithstanding  that  it  has  found  so  far 
no  overwhelming  classic  expression  :  the  wave  is 
only  swelling  to-day,  its  highest  point  may  be  ten 
or  twenty  years  hence.  This  up  and  down  of  real- 
ism and  idealism  in  philosophical  thought  is  not  a 
chance  feature,  nor  even  a  by-product  of  civiliza- 
tion, but  the  clearest  expression,  and  perhaps  most 
central  factor,  of  the  world's  development  through- 
out that  period.  The  French  philosophy  of  the 
eighteenth  century  cannot  be  separated  from  the 


214  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

French  Revolution  or  from  the  American  Decla- 
ration of  Independence.  The  anti-idealistic  move- 
ment of  the  post-Hegelian  time,  with  its  overesti- 
mation  of  the  natural  sciences,  cannot  be  separated 
from  the  development  of  modern  industry  and 
modern  technique.  And  thus  in  every  way  the 
philosophical  movements  were  both  the  moving 
powers  and  the  indicators  of  the  whole  rhythm  of 
civilization.  The  Western  civilization,  as  a  whole, 
shows,  indeed,  a  realistic  character  in  the  second 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  an  idealistic  wave 
in  the  first  third  of  the  nineteenth,  a  new  realism 
since  the  middle  of  it,  and  the  beginning  of  a 
new  idealism  near  the  close  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury. We  might  just  as  well  have  followed  it  in 
the  movements  of  art  and  literature.  Can  it  be 
doubted  that  the  realistic  period  of  naturalism  in 
art  is  over,  and  that,  since  the  days  of  the  new 
symbolism,  a  young  idealism  is  passing  through 
the  art  exhibitions  of  all  countries  ?  or  that  the 
period  of  Zola's  realism  is  a  thing  of  the  past,  and 
that  Ibsen  and  Tolstoy  and  Hauptmann  and  Kip- 
ling approach,  from  very  different  quarters,  the 
realm  of  idealism?  or  can  we  overlook  the  corre- 
sponding alternation  between  realistic  cosmopoli- 
tanism and  idealistic  nationalism,  and,  nearly  con- 
nected therewith,  the  alternating  phases  of  human 
belief  in  the  equality  and  in  the  inequality  of 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  215 

men?  The  former  breaks  the  chains  of  the 
slaves,  the  latter  takes  up  the  burden  of  the 
white  man.  Our  own  period,  as  it  presses  towards 
philosophy  and  religion  in  its  thought  and  towards 
idealism  in  its  art,  must  be  nationalistic  and  ex- 
pansionistic. 

But  the  strongest  feature  of  this  movement  of 
the  last  hundred  and  fifty  years  has  not  been 
pointed  out  so  far.  The  realism  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  first  of  all  democratic,  the  reaction  in 
the  nineteenth  was  necessarily  aristocratic,  mon- 
archic, imperialistic  :  the  outcome  was  a  compro- 
mise, for  Europe  the  constitutional  monarchy ; 
and  by  this  compromise,  as  always  happens,  the 
movement  itself  came  to  an  end,  the  problem 
ceased  to  exist.  In  the  second  half  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  the  form  of  political  government 
was  no  longer  a  question  which  moved  peoples. 
How  far  otherwise  was  it  considered  in  the  eigh- 
teenth, and  how  narrowly  connected  with  all  the 
other  phases  of  the  realistic  movement,  with  its 
philosophy  and  its  religion,  its  literature  and  its 
social  life  !  It  was  the  great  period  of  enlight- 
enment, which  worked  with  sober  clearness,  with 
skeptical  understanding,  with  humanitarian  com- 
mon-sense. Such  a  period  must  have  one  aim 
above  all,  not  to  allow  any  illusions.  And  as  the 
foregoing  idealistic  period  had  left  a  world  full  of 


216  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

illusions  and  symbols  of  a  religious  and  historical 
character,  the  chief  energy  of  the  time  had  to  be- 
come destructive,  and  to  turn  against  the  authority 
of  the  church  and  of  the  state  :  equality  and  lib- 
erty sounded  in  all  the  streets.  It  was  a  period 
rich  in  its  inheritance  for  the  following  century, 
full  of  humanitarian  and  civil  impulses,  and  yet  it 
was  narrow  and  Philistine,  as  is  every  enlighten- 
ment of  the  understanding  alone  :  it  was  anti-his- 
torical, anti-religious,  anti-artistic,  with  no  imagina- 
tion, no  emotion,  no  great  historical  consciousness ; 
and  the  idealistic  reaction  was  unavoidable.  The 
time  of  Hegel  and  Goethe  and  Beethoven  had  to 
be  the  time  of  Napoleon  and  of  Prussia's  war  for 
its  national  independence  ;  it  was  the  time  when 
romanticism  and  Gothic  art  awoke  again,  and 
mankind  thought  more  of  the  genius  than  of  the 
masses.  The  fusion  of  these  two  great  antago- 
nistic tendencies  eliminated  this  problem. 

When  the  great  reaction  against  romanticism 
came,  it  could  not  again  be  a  return  to  the  stand- 
point of  the  eighteenth  century,  but  it  brought 
new  problems  forward  as  the  old  ones  had  reached 
a  compromise.  The  new  problems  came  from  the 
new  realism,  which  meant  natural  science,  modern 
industry  and  commerce  and  transport  and  medi- 
cine. But  here,  again,  the  movement  had  to  work 
itself  to  an  end,  to  reach  an  extreme  which  de- 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  217 

mands  reaction.  We  stand  in  the  middle  of  it. 
The  new  discoveries  are  no  longer  solutions  of 
life-problems,  but  luxuries ;  the  phonograph  is 
not  what  the  telegraph  was.  Above  all,  modern 
industry  brought  up  the  question  of  modern  labor, 
the  social  conscience  awoke,  a  new  type  of  man, 
the  mill  laborer,  stood  before  the  world ;  and  man- 
kind recognized  that  he  was  helpless,  and  must 
become  daily  more  helpless,  in  the  presence  of 
combined  capital.  The  idealistic  reaction  began, 
the  social  question  absorbed  the  thinking  world, 
and  thus  the  great  antagonism  of  energies,  of  the 
same  mental  energies  which  fought  a  hundred 
years  ago  over  the  problems  of  state  form,  are 
concentrated  to-day  on  the  problems  of  the  social 
question.  The  idealistic  reaction  in  which  we  live 
will  grow  to  a  point  where  a  compromise  will  be 
reached,  and  the  social  problem  will  then  become 
as  obsolete  and  indifferent  as  the  political  problem 
of  monarchy  or  republic  is  to-day  ;  and  while  the 
alternation  of  idealism  and  realism  will  go  on, 
new  and  ever  new  problems  will  offer  themselves 
as  the  results  of  the  new  fields  which  are  opened 
up  by  these  antagonistic  energies. 


218  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

IV 

We  have  answered  our  first  question,  how  it 
has  come  about  that  the  question  of  monarchy  or 
republic  has  been  laid  on  the  table  in  the  congress 
of  nations  ;  but  we  have  not  answered  the  second 
question,  why  the  republic  of  America  and  the 
monarchy  of  Germany  approach  each  other  by 
a  movement  in  opposite  directions,  —  the  Uni- 
ted States  moving  towards  aristocracy,  Germany 
towards  democracy.  But  the  foregoing  reduction 
of  all  human  efforts  to  the  alternation  of  realistic 
and  idealistic  energies  contains,  also,  the  explana- 
tion of  this  second  phenomenon.  We  emphasized 
from  the  first  that  the  great  progress  of  general 
civilization  of  the  whole  Western  world  is  not  the 
only  illustration  of  that  counterplay  of  energies  : 
the  world-movements  are  accompanied  by  local 
movements  of  far-reaching  independence.  The 
French  Revolution,  Darwinism,  electro-technique, 
and  the  labor  question  are  world-movements  which 
cannot  be  localized ;  but  other  waves  are  limited 
by  the  boundaries  of  a  nation,  others  even  by  the 
walls  of  a  town  or  of  a  set  or  of  a  group :  any 
social  unit  may  have  its  independent  alternation  of 
realistic  and  idealistic  energies.  While  the  general 
world-movements  show  to-day  the  ebbing  of  a  great 
realistic  wave,  which  was  at  flood  tide  twenty  years 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  219 

ago,  and  the  slow  upward  swelling  of  an  idealistic 
wave,  which  has  not  yet  broken,  there  is  a  local 
realistic  democratic  movement  just  now  sweeping 
over  Germany  and  an  idealistic  tendency  over  the 
United  States.  Both  are  determined  by  local  con- 
ditions, but  both  work  towards  a  surprising  simi- 
larity of  the  two  forms  of  national  life,  inasmuch 
as  they  are  necessarily  diminishing  those  differ- 
ences which  resulted  from  the  different  forms  of 
the  historical  constitution. 

It  may  sound  paradoxical,  and  yet  it  can  hardly 
be  doubted  that,  within  a  certain  limit,  it  is  on 
both  sides  the  same  cause  which  has  had  an  oppo- 
site effect.  It  is  the  accumulation  of  wealth  which 
creates  the  aristocratic  movement  in  America  and 
which  spreads  a  democratic  spirit  over  Germany. 
The  strenuous  pioneer  life,  where  wealth  begins 
merely  in  the  first  generation,  has  no  room  for 
class  discrimination  and  for  aristocratic  fashion, 
culture,  art,  and  taste ;  on  the  other  side,  in  the 
society  in  which  the  nobleman  is  the  rich  land- 
owner and  high  officer  and  state  official,  with  all 
the  power  in  his  traditional  rights,  while  the  pop- 
ulation is  poor,  and  therefore  powerless,  there  is 
no  chance  for  democratic  ideas.  But  if  inherited 
wealth  and  a  leisure  class  grow  up  on  the  one  side 
of  the  ocean,  and  if  commerce  and  industry  bring 
wealth  to  the  middle  classes  on  the  other  side, 
then  the  time  for  a  change  has  come. 


220  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

Two  recent  novels,  one  American  and  the  other 
German,  throw  light  on  the  contrasts  of  the  situa- 
tion. "  In  this  country  we  are  all  free  and  equal," 
says  Selma  in  Robert  Grant's  "  Unleavened 
Bread,"  and  Flossie  retorts,  "  Yes,  there  is  some- 
thing of  the  sort  in  the  Declaration  of  Independ- 
ence, but  that  was  put  in  as  a  bluff  to  console 
salesladies.  .  .  .  People  here  are  either  in  society 
or  out  of  it,  and  society  itself  is  divided  into  sets. 
There 's  the  conservative  aristocratic  set,  the  smart 
rapid  set,  the  set  which  has  not  much  money,  but 
has  Knickerbocker  or  other  highly  respectable  an- 
cestors, the  new  millionaire  set,  the  literary  set,  the 
intellectual  philanthropic  set,  and  so  on.  .  .  . 
Most  of  the  people  in  these  different  sets  are 
somebodies  because  either  their  grandfathers  or 
they  have  done  something  well  —  better  than  other 
people — and  made  money  as  a  consequence.  And 
when  a  family  has  made  money  or  won  distinction 
by  its  brains,  and  then  has  brushed  its  teeth  twice 
a  day  for  two  generations,  the  members  of  it, 
even  though  dull,  are  entitled  to  respect,  don't 
you  think  so  ?  " 

And  now  as  a  contrast  to  Grant's  ironical 
sketch,  so  full  of  truth,  let  me  quote  the  splendid 
novel  of  Georg  von  Ompteda,  —  "  Eysen."  It  is 
the  life  portrait  of  the  family  von  Eysen,  an  old 
noble  family  which  has  belonged  for  centuries  to 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  221 

the  aristocratic  set  which  has  controlled  social  life 
by  holding  the  high  positions  in  state  and  army 
and  owning  the  great  country  estates.  It  now 
sees  that  a  new  time  is  coming,  and  feels  that  the 
land  is  passing  into  the  hands  of  the  new  mer- 
chants and  bankers  and  industrials  and  that 
the  higher  standard  of  the  middle  classes,  with 
their  hard  work  and  intellectual  energy,  is  bring- 
ing them  more  and  more  to  power  and  leadership. 
The  General  von  Eysen  is  conscious  that  he  has 
overcome  his  old  prejudices :  he  has  given  per- 
mission to  his  only  son  to  become  neither  officer 
nor  state  official,  but  engineer ;  and  at  a  reunion 
in  which  he  meets  the  younger  members  of  his 
family  he  says  in  his  toast :  "  Above  all  —  you 
must  work  ;  who  does  not  work,  must  sink.  Be 
everywhere  —  not  only  where  we  could  be  found 
in  the  past  —  on  our  own  ground,  in  the  state 
service,  in  the  army.  .  .  .  We  live  in  a  new  time 
and  a  new  time  demands  new  conditions;  give 
honor  to  the  tradition,  but  do  not  become  its 
slaves.  If  you  look  only  backward  to  the  history 
of  the  past,  you  will  lose  your  freedom.  .  .  .  No, 
my  young  relatives,  we  old  families  do  not  want 
to  be  submerged.  Go  into  art,  into  science  and 
medicine,  sit  on  the  merchant's  stool,  guide  your 
ships  into  foreign  seas  for  the  honor  and  advan- 
tage of  the  German  name ;  enter  life  not  only  as 


222  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

state  officers,  but  as  lawyers,  or  as  architects; 
•wherever  in  the  world  money  is  to  be  gained  by 
the  exertion  of  commerce  and  industry,  go  and 
take  part ;  money  in  the  right  hand  gives  free- 
dom." 

Yes,  a  new  time  has  come  for  Germany ;  in 
thirty  years  of  undisturbed  peace  it  has  grown 
rich,  it  has  changed  from  an  agricultural  country 
into  an  industrial  country,  the  standard  of  life 
has  been  raised  with  an  undreamed  of  rapidity, 
the  horizon  has  been  widened,  the  new  industry 
has  pushed  trade  over  the  ocean,  a  colonial  system 
has  grown  up,  and  all  has  had  only  one  effect  in 
common,  —  the  rise  of  the  democratic  spirit  in 
the  noblest  meaning  of  the  word.  It  has  not 
taken  anything  from  the  aristocratic  power  of  the 
empire,  has  not  touched  all  the  noble  achieve- 
ments of  an  aristocratic  army  and  state  service, 
has  even  reinforced  the  German's  love  for  his  king 
and  his  princes ;  and  yet,  as  General  von  Eysen 
said,  the  new  time  has  come.  The  symptoms  are 
felt  wherever  we  turn.  The  raising  of  the  social 
level  of  the  business  man,  the  merchant,  and  the 
industrial  man,  together  with  the  sinking  of  the 
social  level  of  the  landowner,  is  certainly  one  of 
the  most  prominent  features.  The  power  which 
the  great  representatives  of  industry  and  com- 
merce and  banking  and  the  market  have  to-day 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  223 

in  the  state  organism  of  Germany  could  not  have 
been  dreamt  of  twenty  years  ago,  and  the  num- 
ber of  high  officials  who  seek  business  positions 
grows  rapidly.  There  is  a  certain  analogy  in  the 
steady  raising  of  the  practical  professions,  that  of 
the  engineer  and  the  scientist,  in  comparison  with 
the  literary  professions ;  the  entire  education  is 
being  turned,  and  not  least  through  the  Emper- 
or's influence,  in  the  direction  of  practical,  tech- 
nical achievements  as  over  against  the  classic 
traditions.  It  is  the  same  principle  which  eman- 
cipates the  woman,  a  movement  which,  after  a 
long  time  of  waiting,  to-day  perhaps  overhastens 
its  progress  :  the  democratic  desire  for  equality 
must  demand  the  same  rights  for  women.  But 
the  principle  of  emancipation  applied  to  the  busi- 
ness world,  the  practical  professions,  the  women, 
cannot  be  limited  to  the  middle  classes;  the  same 
tendency  must  help  the  lower  classes  also.  No- 
where, perhaps,  does  the  "  new  time  "  appear  more 
clearly.  The  social-democratic  party,  which  was, 
even  ten  years  ago,  considered  and  suppressed  as 
an  enemy  of  the  state,  becomes  daily  more  and 
more  a  cooperating  member  of  the  social  organism, 
while  the  material  fate  of  the  laborer  is  protected 
by  the  state  socialism,  which  has  become  law. 
And,  above  all,  the  intellectual  and  aesthetic  inter- 
ests of  the  masses  are  growing  with  the  higher 


224  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

standard  of  the  whole  population.  The  reading 
of  papers,  the  formation  of  clubs  and  societies, 
discussions  and  lectures,  reach  wider  and  wider 
circles,  while  rich  men  begin,  in  growing  measure, 
to  devote  large  gifts  to  public  benefits.  Add 
thereto  the  new  enthusiasm  for  the  sea,  for  naval 
affairs,  for  foreign  lands  beyond  the  ocean,  a 
widening  of  the  horizon  which  necessarily  has  a 
democratic  tendency,  and  which  greatly  reinforces 
the  spirit  of  independence  and  individual  activity ; 
add  the  immense  development  of  technique,  of 
transportation,  of  means  of  communication,  all 
thoroughly  democratic  factors,  since  they  put  men 
more  on  an  equal  footing  and  bring  progress 
within  the  reach  of  every  one ;  add  the  whole 
increase  of  the  yearly  saving,  which  means  better 
food  and  better  houses,  health  and  cleanliness  and 
enjoyment, —  and  if  we  sought  to  compress  all 
into  one  word,  we  might  say,  Germany  has  be- 
come in  the  last  ten  years  Americanized.  The 
thoroughly  aristocratic  nation,  with  all  its  appre- 
ciation for  the  historical  forces  and  symbols,  for 
arts  and  education,  for  the  leadership  of  the  edu- 
cated, and  for  the  acknowledgment  of  authority, 
has  added  to  itself  since  the  coming  of  the  new 
time  the  individual  activity  and  the  equality  of 
the  ideal  democracy. 

And  America  ?    Is  Flossie  right,  —  has  equality 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  225 

become  only  a  bluff  for  the  consolation  of  sales- 
ladies ?  Certainly  not !  Democracy  is  still  to-day 
the  rock  on  which  the  United  States  is  built,  and 
will  remain  so,  exactly  as  Germany  in  its  deepest 
structure  will  remain  monarchical ;  and  yet,  if  it 
is  true  that  Germany  becomes  democratic,  in  a 
thousand  respects  it  is  still  more  true  that  Amer- 
ica becomes  aristocratic  :  a  new  time  has  come  for 
America,  too.  Of  course  I  do  not  have  in  mind 
here  those  pseudo-aristocratic  and  pseudo-mon- 
archic tendencies  which  work  against  the  demo- 
cratic institutions  by  dishonest  means  and  intol- 
erable abuses :  bossism  is  merely  the  caricature  of 
aristocracy ;  and  while  it  is  true  that  Quay  and 
Croker  and  their  likes  are  tyrants  without  a  con- 
stitutional background,  whose  whims  lead  men  on 
to  fortune  or  destroy  them,  this  tyranny  is  the 
outgrowth  of  democracy  and  not  at  all  the  legacy 
of  aristocratic  impulses. 

But  even  when  we  turn  to  the  really  aristocra- 
tic symptoms  of  national  life,  the  question  is  not 
whether  we  welcome  or  deprecate  them  ;  we  are 
interested  merely  in  the  question  whether  the  phe- 
nomena exist.  Thus  it  cannot  be  our  task  here 
to  inquire  whether  the  United  States  is  wise  or 
unwise  in  its  policy  of  aggressive  expansion, 
whether  it  would  be  better  to  remain  loyal  to  the 
principles  of  the  past,  which  reduced  the  chances 


226  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

of  friction  with  other  nations,  and  thus  saved  to 
the  land  the  burdens  of  militarism,  or  whether 
the  progress  of  the  country  demands  that  new 
responsibilities  be  courageously  faced.  For  us  it 
is  sufficient  that  imperialism  is  a  symptom  of  the 
aristocratic  attitude  towards  man,  and  that  impe- 
rialism is  the  creed  of  the  country.  Imperialism 
means  the  belief  in  the  inequality  of  men,  which, 
as  we  emphasized  from  the  beginning,  follows  the 
logic  of  idealism.  It  is  true  that  only  one  of  the 
two  great  parties  stood  for  the  imperialistic  policy 
in  the  last  presidential  election  ;  but  the  social  psy- 
chologist cannot  doubt  that  the  Democrats  were 
anti-imperialistic  only  because  the  Republicans  had 
chosen  otherwise  beforehand ;  while  the  Demo- 
cratic masses,  before  the  campaign  had  hammered 
the  issue  into  their  minds,  were  not  less  carried 
away  by  the  Kipling  mood  than  the  other  half 
of  the  nation.  But  it  was  not  even  necessary  to 
wait  till  the  Philippine  issue  was  brought  before 
the  American  consciousness.  The  suppression 
of  the  Chinese  in  California,  the  barriers  erected 
against  the  undesirable  types  of  immigrants  from 
Europe,  above  all,  the  adroit  laws  to  deprive  the 
negro  of  his  vote,  —  all  speak  the  same  language, 
all  demonstrate  the  same  way  of  feeling :  the 
aristocratic  morality  of  a  powerful  and  noble 
nation,  what  Nietzsche  called  the  morals  of  mas- 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  227 

ters  —  so  different  from  the  democratic  morals  of 
slaves,  who  try  to  make  the  world  believe  that  all 
men  are  equal. 

But  does  this  undemocratic  spirit  turn  against 
the  outsider  only  ?  Where  is  the  equality  in  the 
inner  life  of  America  ?  Of  course  it  is  true  that 
we  have  public  schools  where  all  are  equal ;  the 
only  difficulty  is  that  they  are  not  in  use.  Yes, 
there  is  no  doubt  that  we  are  fast  approaching  a 
state  where  nobody  in  a  city  sends  his  children  to 
the  public  schools  when  his  means  allow  him  to 
pay  for  the  instruction  of  a  private  school.  "  Tout 
comme  chez  nous !  "  The  whole  educational  sys- 
tem is  rapidly  becoming  aristocratic.  This  case 
is  similar  to  that  of  travel  by  rail.  Americans 
who  go  to  Europe  like  to  ridicule  the  class  differ- 
ences in  the  European  trains  and  boast  that  Ameri- 
can railroads  have  only  one  class ;  but  on  inquiry 
it  appears  that  it  is  hard  to  find  any  one  of  your 
acquaintance  who  travels  in  America,  from  one 
large  city  to  another,  without  carefully  avoiding 
that  single  class  by  sitting  in  the  parlor  car.  And 
this  exclusiveness  of  the  passenger  reflects  the 
character  of  society.  The  plan  after  which  the 
smart  set,  and  not  in  New  York  and  Newport 
alone,  celebrates  its  festivities  and  weds  its  brides 
is  not  only  the  pattern  of  fashion  and  luxury,  but 
a  conscious  imitation  of  aristocracy.  A  typical 


228  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

expression  is  found  in  the  immense  growth  of  the 
pedigree  craze.  The  marriages  of  American  heir- 
esses with  European  fortune  hunters  of  the  nobil- 
ity seem  to  me  un-American,  and  thus  not  typical : 
it  is  the  fancy  of  individuals  and  not  a  symptom 
of  national  life.  But  the  genealogical  passion, 
"  the  pedigree  spleen,"  grows  out  of  the  best  ma- 
terial of  the  nation,  and  yet  it  is  thoroughly  anti- 
democratic. If  a  single  family  of  Connecticut 
needs  three  volumes  of  2740  quarto  pages  to 
print  its  own  history;  if  the  Daughters  of  the 
Revolution  have  27,000  members ;  if  the  genea- 
logical societies  like  the  Colonial  Dames,  the 
Daughters  of  the  Holland  Dames,  the  Mayflower 
Descendants,  and  so  on,  multiply  with  every  year, 
— the  aristocratic  undercurrent  cannot  be  doubted. 
It  is  thus  not  by  chance  that  the  old  Southern 
aristocracy  just  now  begins  to  become  somewhat 
reconciled  :  public  life  begins  to  move  more  and 
more  in  their  direction. 

And  all  this  is  reflected  in  the  public  life.  We 
know  the  simplicity,  according  to  the  tradition  at 
least,  with  which  that  President  of  the  past  went 
on  horseback  alone  to  the  Capitol  to  take  the  oath 
of  office,  and  tied  his  horse  to  the  post ;  we  know 
the  military  pageantry  which  accompanied  the 
last  presidential  inauguration.  And  this  aristo- 
cratic desire  for  the  outer  symbolic  decoration 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  229 

percolates  through  all  layers  of  society,  down  to 
the  car  conductor  and  the  elevator  boy,  who  are 
proud  of  their  distinguishing  uniform,  while,  only 
a  short  time  ago,  as  I  am  informed,  a  free  Amer- 
ican still  objected  to  wearing  any  uniform  in 
civil  life.  The  tendency  to  develop  more  refined 
and  polished  manners  belongs  necessarily  to  the 
change  ;  the  spitting  and  chewing  decrease  from 
year  to  year,  and  the  men  who  put  their  feet  on 
the  table  and  the  women  who  rock  while  they 
are  talking  become  rarer  specimens. 

But  these  are  matters  of  external  life.  It  is 
the  inner  vitality  in  which  the  really  important 
changes  are  felt,  changes  which  are  essentially 
beyond  difference  of  opinion,  changes  which  can- 
not be  disposed  of  as  snobbish,  and  which  none 
the  less  are  decidedly  aristocratic.  Here  belongs 
the  steadily  increasing  influence  of  college-bred 
men  in  public  life ;  the  fact  itself  has  recently 
been  often  demonstrated  with  full  statistics,  and 
its  meaning  is  clear :  the  men  of  superior  education 
are  brought  to  that  superior  position  which  aris- 
tocracy willingly  offers  them,  and  which  demo- 
cracy finally  cannot  deny  them,  in  spite  of  the 
flagrant  inconsistency  of  the  act.  Parallel  with 
this  movement  there  necessarily  goes  a  twofold 
development :  the  growth  of  the  f eeling  of  public 
duties  and  responsibilities  and  the  substitution 


230  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

of  aesthetic  and  intellectual  ideals  for  those  of  a 
merely  commercial  character. 

There  will,  of  course,  always  be  pessimists  who 
lament  that  the  present  is  worse  than  the  past ; 
and  for  editorials  with  a  point  against  Tammany 
or  against  Wall  Street,  it  is  the  right  thing  to 
begin  by  declaiming  that  politics  has  reached  its 
lowest  moral  ebb,  or  that  the  whole  life  of  the 
land  is  sacrificed  to  commercialism.  This  may  be 
effective,  but  it  is  not  true.  The  stronger  current 
of  the  nation  is  at  present  setting  in  the  opposite 
direction.  The  number  of  men  who,  unselfishly 
and  with  high  ideals,  serve  the  community  in  a 
thousand  forms  is  undoubtedly  increasing  every 
day.  The  Roosevelt  type  is  increasing  in  politics, 
but  far  more  outside  of  politics.  If  the  feeling 
of  duty  led  merely  to  financial  bequests,  it  ought 
not  to  count  for  too  much  in  a  country  in  which 
—  compared  with  Germany,  for  instance  —  the 
rich  men  pay  so  small  a  tax ;  but  those  men  should 
count  who  give  their  time  and  effort,  their  intel- 
lect and  honesty, to  public  trusts.  "Noblesse 
oblige  "  is  daily  more  felt ;  but  it  presupposes,  of 
course,  the  "  noblesse,"  the  aristocracy.  That  the 
new  time  means  a  new  life  for  art  and  science 
must  impress  every  one.  The  rapid  growth  of 
our  graduate  schools,  with  their  goals  far  beyond 
the  reach  of  the  college,  demands  an  understand- 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  231 

ing  of  the  value  of  pure  knowledge,  which  offers  it- 
self at  first  only  as  a  luxury  of  the  leisure  classes : 
truth  for  truth's  sake  belongs  to  an  aristocratic 
society.  And  since  the  days  of  the  Chicago 
Fair  and  the  Washington  and  Boston  libraries, 
the  wave  of  American  art  is  swelling.  All  the 
conditions  are  surely  favorable  to  it.  History 
has  always  shown  that  art  comes  to  fullest  flower 
whenever  wealth  is  abundant,  so  that  a  leisure 
class  may  exist,  and  when,  at  the  same  time,  a 
characteristic  national  development  arises.  The 
leisure  class  is  as  yet  made  up  for  the  most  part 
of  women,  but  the  more  wealth  comes  into  the 
second  and  third  generation,  the  more  men  are 
joining  their  ranks.  And  the  more  the  new  pol- 
itics brings  the  country  into  relations  with  other 
nations,  the  more  it  becomes  conscious  of  the  spe- 
cific national  characteristics  of  its  civilization. 
This  beautifying  impulse,  which  is  so  strictly  an- 
tagonistic to  the  utilitarian  aspect  of  democracy, 
brightens  the  whole  country.  Ten  years  ago  the 
railroads  were  no  less  well  equipped,  but  the  rail- 
road stations  were  painful  to  a  European  eye  ;  the 
new  stations  built  in  the  last  ten  years  in  the  lead- 
ing cities  reflect  the  whole  development  of  a  na- 
tion which  is  passing  through  an  aristocratic  period. 
Not  the  narrowness  of  the  farmer,  but  the  aesthetic 
taste  of  the  educated  controls  the  outer  forms  of 


232  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

public  life,  and  the  marble  of  the  public  halls 
teaches  the  masses  that  they  must  refine  their 
manners.  Still  more  evident  is  a  growing  refine- 
ment in  the  industrial  arts  and  in  the  decoration 
of  the  home.  Democratic  wealth  admires  silver- 
ware and  jewelry;  aristocratic  life  does  not  care 
for  the  value  of  the  material,  but  appreciates  the 
form,  the  idea,  the  soul :  Tiffany  glass  and  Rook- 
wood  pottery  would  have  been  impossible  in 
America  twenty  years  ago. 

One  other  position  democracy  begins  slowly,  too 
slowly,  to  surrender :  the  democratic  belief  that 
everybody  can  do  everything,  if  he  only  will,  is 
slowly  fading,  and  the  public,  not  less  than  every 
corporation,  demands  expert  talent  for  its  busi- 
ness, with  the  necessary  changes  on  all  sides. 
It  demands,  first  of  all,  civil  service  reform  and  a 
pension  system.  The  pension  system,  outside  of 
the  army,  is  undemocratic,  and  thus  foreign  to  the 
United  States  till  recent  years ;  it  is  one  of  the 
greatest  blessings  of  the  aristocratic  wave  that  it 
carries  the  pension  system  into  the  most  different 
fields  of  life,  and  thus  creates  the  repose  of  faith- 
ful service  which  knows  itself  protected  and  is 
not  obliged  to  push  itself  constantly  before  the 
attention  of  the  masses.  Even  in  the  highest 
classes  of  service,  like  university  work,  the  pension 
idea  is  only  five  years  old.  On  the  other  hand, 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  233 

there  are  symptoms  that  the  salary  question,  also, 
in  all  walks  of  public  life,  will  be  settled  in  the 
near  future.  To-day  the  judges  of  the  Supreme 
Court,  the  Vice-President,  the  members  of  the 
Cabinet,  and  correspondingly  all  the  lower  offi- 
cials, are  paid  according  to  the  naive  democratic 
idea  that  the  salary  must  be  large  enough  so  that 
some  one  who  is  ready  to  take  the  job  can  be 
found  for  it.  This  farmer's  economy  is  disap- 
pearing, and  the  public  is  learning  an  aristocratic 
lesson  from  the  big  trusts  and  corporations.  This 
undemocratic  belief  in  the  authority  of  the  ex- 
pert brings  the  regular  army  steadily  forward  in 
public  estimation,  while  the  volunteers  are  losing 
ground.  The  demand  for  a  diplomatic  career, 
for  a  systematic  schooling  for  consular  and  diplo- 
matic service,  daily  becomes  louder  ;  the  time  for 
democratic  dilettantism  has  gone  ;  since  America 
has  become  a  world-power,  it  has  too  much  to 
lose.  The  government  cannot  play  any  longer 
with  a  hand  always  open  to  the  criticism  of  every 
editorial  writer,  and  its  diplomats  need  the  pre- 
paration of  a  lifetime;  in  short,  America  daily 
becomes  more  like  the  others,  and  among  the 
"  others  "  especially  like  Germany,  where  the  be- 
lief in  the  superiority  of  expert  work  and  expert 
judgment  has  found  its  fullest  development  and 
realization. 


234  AMERICAN  TRAITS 

Germany  is  Americanizing  and  America  is  Ger- 
manizing, and  nothing  at  this  stage  can  stop  the 
further  development  in  that  direction  ;  it  has  be- 
come necessary  as  an  outlet  for  energies  which 
were  artificially  kept  down  by  aristocracy  in  Ger- 
many and  by  democracy  in  America.  Only  since 
these  two  national  movements  have  supplemented 
the  existing  tendencies,  are  both  countries  fully 
prepared  for  their  roles  as  leaders  on  the  globe. 
Germany  will  remain  a  monarchy,  America  a  re- 
public and  democracy  in  its  entire  political  struc- 
ture, and  yet  this  political  difference  will  be  daily 
less  felt,  because,  as  we  have  seen,  the  political 
questions  of  the  state  forms  have  lost  their  charac- 
ter as  problems.  They  have  not  lost  their  import- 
ance, but  they  have,  like  morality,  become  a  matter 
of  course,  which  is  not  under  discussion,  and  which 
must  be  understood  from  historical  conditions ; 
the  constitutional  difference  no  longer  means  any 
difference  of  opinion.  The  "problem"  has  be- 
come a  social  one,  and  it  is  just  this  field  in  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  development  of  the  last  years 
has  brought  about  in  both  countries  the  same  re- 
sult. The  same  end-point,  a  complete  harmoni- 
zation of  aristocratic  and  democratic  energies,  has 
been  reached  from  two  opposite  starting  points. 
There  is  no  third  country  for  which  that  is  equally 
true.  It  points  to  the  profound  similarity  between 


AMERICAN  DEMOCRACY  235 

the  Americans  and  the  Germans,  a  similarity  which 
was  a  long  time  hidden  by  the  dissimilarity  of  occu- 
pations. Now,  however,  that  the  pioneer  period 
of  America  is  over  and  that  Germany  is  entering 
into  the  world-market,  the  time  has  come  when 
the  deep  harmony  of  their  natures  can  fully  show 
itself.  This  kinship  of  character  is  the  best  secu- 
rity for  a  future  of  lasting  peace,  not  free  from 
competition  and  rivalry  in  all  fields  of  commerce 
and  industry,  of  science  and  art,  of  culture  and 
ideals,  but  free  from  animosity  and  ill  will.  What- 
ever fate  may  bring,  the  present  conjunction  of 
the  stars  would  seem  to  betoken  that  Americans 
and  Germans  will  never  again  forget  that  they 
belong  together. 


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Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.  A. 


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